FOREWORD As the Editor of Mother India, Monthly Review of Culture, published from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, I was happy to bring out most of the essays that make up this book. It is not always that an editor comes across plentiful evidence of an understanding that grows bright Gazing on many truths. Reading the series of studies contributed by Jugal Kishore Mukherjee I could not help being exhilarated not only by the scholarly thoroughness of its knowledge but also by the wide-ranging vitality of its insight. The theme is one of the most challenging that the mind of man has faced: the evolutionary prospects of the human body. The human body is

Chapter III SURVIVAL BEYOND THE TOMB Nachiketas says: "This doubt there is about a man who has passed: some say, ' He is'; some others, 'He is no more.' " (Katha Upanishad, 1. 1. 20) Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?... If a man die, shall he live again? (The Book of Job, 14.10,14) I shall live even when I am dead, just as the solar God Re lives for ever. (Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ed. Naville, Ch. 38) Such then is the ineluctability of death, and thus is fixed in the calendar of time the dark date of its visit of dissolution. But man, the rebel child of Nature, has refused to accept

Chapter II THE TRADITIONAL CHALLENGE Perfect knowledge must lead to the trance of Samadhi.... True Knowledge cannot be attained except in Samadhi. (Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathasar, p. 247) Nor is it enough for the Sadhaka to have the utter realisation only in the trance of Samadhi or in a motionless quietude, but he must in trance or in waking, in passive reflection or energy of action be able to remain in the constant Samadhi of the firmly founded Brahmic consciousness. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 349) When the ego-sense gets completely dissolved, the body, the prod

Chapter II A SEMBLANCE OF VICTORY Life was a search but finding never came. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto VI, p. 174) From food man was born. Verily, man, this human being, is made of the essential substance of food.1 (Taittiriya Upanishad, II. 1) If a person does not eat,...he has to give up his life at the end; on the other hand, if he takes in food again, he becomes richly endowed with life. (Maitri Upanishad, 6.11) It is a common enough observation that a living body may sometimes appear to manage without any food-intake, if not for all time at least for a short while, under some special circumstances

THE DESTINY OF THE BODY THE DESTINY OF THE BODY The Vision and the Realisation in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga Even the body shall remember God. — Sri Aurobindo Jugal Kishore Mukherjee Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry First edition: 1975 Third impression: 2000 ISBN 81-7058-141-9 © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1975 Published by Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA PUBLISH

Chapter II THE SEEKING AND THE ESCAPIST URGE "All philosophies start in the contemplation of death." (Schopenhauer) Metaphysics arises from man's desire to know, in a world of change and transitoriness, just where he is journeying; it arises whenever man seeks 'to map the Universe and to plot his position within it'.1 Indeed, "the one question which through all its complexities is the sum of philosophy and to which all human enquiry comes round in the end, is the problem of ourselves, — why we are here and what we are, and what is behind and before and around us, and what we are to do with ourselves, our inner signifi

Chapter XIV THE CONQUEST OF MORTALITY Let deathless eyes look into the eyes of Death, An imperishable Force touching brute things Transform earth's death into immortal life. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book X, Canto IV, p. 664) For this she had accepted mortal breath; To wrestle with the shadow she had come And must confront the riddle of man's birth And life's brief struggle in dumb Matter's night... Whether to bear with Ignorance and Death Or hew the ways of Immortality, To win or lose the godlike game for man, Was her soul's issue thrown with Destiny's dice. (Ibid., Book I, Canto II, p. 1

Chapter V THE CRITIQUE OF THE TRANCE-SOLUTION The Voice replied: "Is this enough, O Spirit ? And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows The work was left undone for which it came ? Or is this all for thy being born on earth Charged with a mandate from eternity, ........ To pass and leave unchanged the old dusty laws ? Shall there be no new tables, no new Word, No greater light come down upon the earth Delivering her from her unconsciousness, Man's spirit from unalterable fate? .......... Is this then the report that I must make, My head bowed with

Chapter VIII THE VISION OF THE DIVINE BODY The Light now distant shall grow native here, The Strength that visits us our comrade power; The Ineffable shall find a secret voice, The Imperishable burn through Matter's screen Making this mortal body godhead's robe. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto II, p. 110) Past and gone are three mortal generations: the fourth and last into the Sun will enter. (Rig-Veda, VIII. 102. 14) If the transformation of the body is complete, that means no subjection to death — it does not mean that one will be bound to keep the same body for all time. O

Chapter IV THE INVOLUTIONARY SLEEP "Is the material state an emptiness of consciousness, or is it not rather only a sleep of consciousness — even though from the point of view of evolution an original and not an intermediate sleep? And by sleep the human example teaches us that we mean not a suspension of consciousness, but its gathering inward away from conscious physical response to the impacts of external things. And is not this what all existence is that has not yet developed means of outward communication with the external physical world?" (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine p.86) Sleep is in its widest and intrinsic sense a cosmic ph