Part One PROLEGOMENA Chapter I THE CHALLENGE "Wilt thou claim immortality, O heart, Crying against the eternal witnesses... I only am eternal and endure.... I am a timeless Nothingness carrying all,... I, Death, am He; there is no other God. All from my depths are born, they live by death; All to my depths return and are no more." (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book IX, Canto II, pp. 592-93) "I bow not to Thee, O huge mask of Death, Black lie of night to the cowed soul of man, Unreal, inescapable end of things, Thou grim jest played with the immortal spirit." (Ibid, p. 588)

-033_Metaphysics of Hunger - The Universal ^Yajna^.htm Chapter IV METAPHYSICS OF HUNGER: THE UNIVERSAL 'YAJNA' A thousand salutations to the Great Mother who pervadest all becomings in the shape of Hunger and Thirst. (Chandi Saptashati, III.16,19) To whatever god the oblation is offered, Hunger and Thirst surely have their share in the offering.1 (Aitareya Upanishad, I.2.5) By the Apāna...food was seized and of Apāna Death was born. (Ibid., I.3.10 & I.1.4) They preyed upon the world and were its prey. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto IV, p. 144) A Hunger amorous of its suffering prey, Life that devours, my image see in

Chapter II THE INELUCTABLE GUEST I am a timeless Nothingness carrying all, I am the Illimitable, the mute Alone. I, Death, am He; there is no other God. All from my depths are born, they live by death; All to my depths return and are no more. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book IX, Canto II, pp. 592-93) De quel nom te nommer, o fatale puissance ? Qu'on t'appelle Destin, Nature, Providence, Inconcevable loi, Qu'on tremble sous ta main, ou bien qu'on te blasphème, Soumis ou révolté", qu'on te craigne ou qu'on t'aime, Toujours, c'est toujours toi! (Lamartine, Medit. poetic, Le Désespoir)

Chapter VIII THE MIND-CONSIOUSNESS: ITS ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES A black veil has been lifted; we have seen The mighty shadow of the omniscient Lord; But who has lifted up the veil of light And who has seen the body of the King ? (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book III, Canto II, p. 311) It is certain that you won't be able to know the Atman through the mind. You have to go beyond the mind. As there is no instrument beyond the mind — for only the Atman exists there — there the object of knowledge becomes the same as the instrument of knowledge....It is therefore that the Shruti says,

Chapter XI THE ASCENDING SCALE OF ENERGY One thing one does not escape and that is the wasting of the material tissues of the body, its flesh and substance. Conceivably, if a practicable way and means could only be found, this last invincible obstacle too might be overcome and the body maintained by an interchange of its forces with the forces of material Nature, giving to her her need from the individual and taking from her directly the sustaining energies of her universal existence. Conceivably, one might rediscover and reestablish at the summit of the evolution of life the phenomenon we see at its base, the power to draw from all around i

Chapter V THE MISGIVING AND THE FROWN All that is born must taste death too ... (Gita, II, 27) Life, indeed, ends in death. ( Dhammapada, 148) Will all beings die ? Buddha said: "Short, O monks, is the life of man ... it is impossible that what is born should not die." (Abhidharmakoṣavyākhyā) Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis, III. 19) The impossible is the hint of what shall be, Mortal the door to immortality. (Sri Aurobindo, More Poems, p. 78) ODeath, thou speakest truth but Truth that slays, Ianswer to Thee with the Truth that saves. (Sri

Chapter IX THE CONQUEST OF SLEEP Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever. Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour. (Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems and Plays, Vol. II, p. 122) He has seen God's slumber shape these magic worlds. He has watched the dumb God fashioning Matter's frame, Dreaming the dreams of its unknowing sleep, And watched the unconscious Force that built the stars. He has learnt the Inconscient's workings a

Chapter V THE EVOLUTIONARY WAKING "The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of...the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the super-conscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 640) Following the purposeful involutionary plunge of Sachchidananda into "the Inconscient's boundless sleep"1, commences the 'obverse manifestation', the inevitable process of evolution, by which the Consciousness-Force involved in the form and activity of inert material substance gradually wakes again and brings out by degrees all the hidden

Chapter XIII METAPHYSICAL FACTORS OF DEATH Although God made the world for his delight, An ignorant Power took charge and seemed his Will And Death's deep falsity has mastered Life. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book X, Canto III, p. 629) Death is the constant denial by the All of the ego's false self-limitation in the individual frame of mind, life and body. (Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, p. 103) It was the conditions of matter upon earth that have made death indispensable. The whole sense of the evolution of Matter has been a growth from a first state of unconsciousness to an increasing consciousness.... A fi

Chapter VI THE BASAL IMMORTALITY: THE EVOLUTION OF DEATH These glimmerings point to the secret of our birth And the hidden miracle of our destiny. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto II, p. 110) We can resolutely affirm that, in the actual terrestrial conditions of life, the immortality of the cell is an indubitable fact. ... And what characterises most a living organism is its potential immortality and not its death. (S. Metalnikov, Immortalité et Rajeunissement dans la Biologie Moderne, pp. 215-216) In our search for any biological evolutionary clues in support o