BOOK II Part II THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE IGNORANCE THE SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION CHAPTER XV Reality and the Integral Knowledge This Self is to be won by the Truth and by an integral knowledge. Mundaka Upanishad.¹ Hear how thou shalt know Me in My totality... for even of the seekers who have achieved, hardly one knows Me in all the truth of My being. Gita.² THIS then is the origin, this the nature, these the boundaries of the Ignorance. Its origin is a limitation of knowledge, its distinctive character a separation of the being from its own integrality and entire reality; its boundari

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Our Life Divine first appeared serially in the Arya from August 1914 to January 1919. Volume I, revised and enlarged, was first published in book from in November 1939: Volume II, recast and enlarged, followed in July 1940, in two parts. These were reprinted in 1943 and 1947. the Sri Aurobindo Library, New York, Issued a single volume edition in 1949 and reprinted it in 1951. an edition under the imprint of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, also in a single volume, appeared in 1955 and was reprinted in 1960. The India Library Society Education (New York) came out in 1965. The present edition in two volumes forms part of

CHAPTER XVI The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence When all the desires that cling to the heart are loosed away from it, then the mortal becomes immortal, even here he possesses the Eternal. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.1 He becomes the Eternal and departs into the Eternal. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.2 This bodiless and immortal Life and Light is the Brahman. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.3 Long and narrow is the ancient Path,—I have touched it, I have found it,—the Path by which the wise, knowers of the Eternal, attaining to salvation, depart hence to the high world

CHAPTER XXVII The Gnostic Being A perfect path of the Truth has come into being for our journey to the other shore beyond the darkness. 1Rig Veda.1 O Truth-Conscious, be conscious of the Truth, cleave out many streams of the Truth. Rig Veda.2 O Flame, O Wine, your force has become conscious; you have discovered the One Light for the many. Rig Veda.3 Pure-white and dual in her largenesses, she follows effectively, like one who knows, the path of the Truth and diminishes not its directions. Rig Veda.4 By the Truth they hold the Truth that holds all, in the power of the Sacrifice, in the sup

CHAPTER XXIV The Evolution of the Spiritual Man Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides.... Whatever form the worshipper chooses to worship with faith, I set in him firm faith in it, and with that faith he puts his yearning into his adoration and gets his desire dispensed by Me. But limited is that fruit. Those whose sacrifice is to the gods, to elemental spirits, reach the gods, reach the elemental spirits, but those whose sacrifice is to Me, to Me they come. Gita.1 In these there is not the Wonder and the Might; the truths occult exist not for the

CHAPTER XXVIII The Divine Life O seeing Flame, thou carriest man of the crooked ways into the abiding truth and the knowledge. Rig Veda.1 I purify earth and heaven by the Truth. Rig Veda.2 His ecstasy, in one who holds it, sets into motion the two births, the human self-expression and the divine, and moves between them. Rig Veda.3 May the invincible rays of his intuition be there seeking immor- tality, pervading both the births; for by them he sets flowing in one movement human strengths and things divine. Rig Veda.4 Let all accept thy will when thou art born a living god from the dry tree, that they m

CHAPTER XIX Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge Seven steps has the ground of the Ignorance, seven steps has the ground of the Knowledge. Mahopanishad.¹ He found the vast Thought with seven heads that is born of the Truth; he created some fourth world and became universal.... The Sons of Heaven, the Heroes of the Omnipotent, thinking the straight thought, giving voice to the Truth, founded the plane of illumination and conceived the first abode of the Sacrifice.... The Master of Wisdom cast down the stone defences and called to the Herds of Light,... the Herds that stand in

CHAPTER XXI The Order of the Worlds Seven are these worlds in which move the life-forces that are hidden within the secret heart as their dwelling-place seven by seven. Mundaka Upanishad.¹ II. 1. 8. May the Peoples of the five Births accept my sacrifice, those who are born of the Light and worthy of worship; may Earth protect us from earthly evil and the Mid-Region from calamity from the gods. Follow the shining thread spun out across the mid-world, protect the luminous paths built by the thought; weave an in- violate work, become the human being, create the divine race.... Seers of truth are you, sharpen the shining

CHAPTER XX The Philosophy of Rebirth An end have these bodies of an embodied soul that is eternal;... it is not born nor dies nor is it that having been it will not be again. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. As a man casts from him his worn-out garments and takes others that are new, so the embodied being casts off its bodies and joins itself to others that are new. Certain is the death of that which is born and certain is the birth of that which dies... Gita.¹ There is a birth and growth of the self. According to his actions the embodied being assumes forms suc

CHAPTER XXVI The Ascent towards Supermind Masters of the Truth-Light who make the Truth grow by the Truth. Rig Veda.1 Three powers of Speech that carry the Light in their front ... a triple house of peace, a triple way of the Light. Rig Veda.2 Four other worlds of beauty he creates as his form when he has grown by the Truths. Rig Veda.3 He is born a seer with the mind of discernment; an offspring of the Truth, a birth set within in the secrecy, half arisen into manifestation. Rig Veda.4 Possessed of a vast inspired wisdom, creators of the Light, con- scious all-knowers, growing in the Trut