{"id":10668,"date":"2014-07-12T22:47:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T05:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saa.santansoftwaresystems.com\/?p=10668"},"modified":"2014-12-06T23:10:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T07:10:40","slug":"savitri-study-book-2-canto-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/savitri-study\/book-2-savitri-study\/savitri-study-book-2-canto-4","title":{"rendered":"Savitri-study-Book-2-Canto-4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nIntroduction<\/a>   Notes<\/a>   Book 1<\/a>   Book II<\/a>   Book III<\/a>   Book IV<\/a>   
\nBook V<\/a>   Book VI<\/a>   Book VII<\/a>   Book VIII<\/a>   
\nBook IX<\/a>   Book X<\/a>   Book XI<\/a>   Book XII<\/a>
\n<\/br><\/br><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Book Two. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds<\/p>\n

\nCanto I<\/a>    Canto II<\/a>    Canto III<\/a>    Canto IV<\/a>    
\nCanto V<\/a>
\n    Canto VI<\/a>    Canto VII<\/a>    Canto VIII<\/a>    
\nCanto IX<\/a>
\n    Canto X<\/a>    Canto XI<\/a>    Canto XII<\/a>    
\nCanto XIII<\/a>    Canto XIV<\/a>    
\nCanto XV<\/a>           \n<\/p>\n

<\/br><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Book Two<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Book of the Traveller of the Worlds<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n
\n


\nBook
\nTwo: Canto <\/B>4<\/B><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nKingdoms of the Little Life<\/B><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Summary<\/B>
\n
It is a hesitating and unsure world that slowly comes into being
\nwhere Life meets Matter. There is a stir of the force of a veiled
\nconsciousness which is involved in the inconscience; it struggles to
\nfind itself and find a hold on things. This world breathes and
\nstrives between the pain of earth below and the bliss of heaven above
\nfrom which life has fallen.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nhunger of the life-force is added to the hunger of the earth and
\nthere is a great unrest which expresses itself as a ceaseless craving
\nin men. With the advent of life all repose is gone. Man is seized
\nwith desire, with passion for what he has not. Otherwise he could
\nhave stayed content like plants and animals. And because he is
\nunhappy thus, he aspires, he seeks and progresses. He explores life
\nwithout, turns to explore it within; he builds up mind and self in
\nhis being and grows into a master of the Nature of whom he was a
\nprisoner before.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nWhen
\nLife enters Matter she exerts pressure and compels the unconscious
\nForce in matter emerge.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nis a general awakening and sensation comes to be. In the absence of
\nthought, instinct guides the movement. Life brings the compulsion to
\nmove and to grow and spreads herself slowly searching to realise her
\ninnate bliss which she has lost here.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAswapathy
\nfollows the course taken by Life and traces her obscure start on
\nearth where she is close to Death and the Night of Nescience. She
\nuses death for her own survival. Here is the nadir of her fall.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nHere
\nwhere life starts her career in matter, Aswapathy finds there is no
\nsolid ground to stand upon, no meaningful movement either. All is
\ntentative. Forms are a-making and when they are shaped, there is
\nimpact between form and forth resulting in the outbreak of sense and
\ninstinct. Forces clash and there is a general struggle for survival.
\nSensations, feelings, appear and disappear. All seems to be a vain
\nagitation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nBut
\nAswapathy sees a purpose behind this seeming uselessness, a work
\nbeing done in spite of all the apparent aimlessness. A Force has been
\nreleased from the dense sleep of Matter into the domain of life;
\nthere is a slow emergence of consciousness from under the veil of
\nnescience. All moves under the irresistible urge for change, for the
\nmanifestation of what is concealed.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nHe
\ntraces the course of this incessant movement to its source where he
\nbecomes aware of the presence of a Creative Power which seeks to
\nmanifest the Spirit in Matter, the Soul in the body through the
\nintermediacy of life. Behind this Power is the play of God’s Delight
\nin Creation, in manifestation. This basic Delight is at the root of
\nall the movements of the body, the life-force and the mind towards
\njoy and bliss. Whether by aggregation or by devouring, life seeks to
\nmultiply its delight.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAswapathy
\nwatches here the first attempts of the will-to-delight to effectuate
\nitself and the handicaps imposed on it by the very obscure nature of
\nMatter in which it has to function. However, through these persistent
\nefforts with all the clampings of the nether force on it, the
\nimprisoned consciousness emerges a little by little, gathers itself
\nand begins to look upward to the Light above.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nWhen
\nthe creative Spirit plunged at the culmination of its devolution into
\na Nescience all would have been lost but for the special descent of
\nthe Supreme Being of Sat-Chit-Ananda into that negative Void, a
\ndescent which resulted in a striking charge of Being into Void, of
\nConscious-Force into Nescience, of Delight into Pain. This
\ncontradiction forms the basis of life in this creation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThus
\nstarts the slow aeonic game of hide and seek between the hidden Soul
\nand obscure Nature. Across the successive stages of evolution it
\ncontinues till in the mind the struggling Energy of Nature emerges
\ninto the wider fields of Consciousness to meet the Being face to
\nface.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAswapathy
\nregards a mighty Spirit concealed in Nature; he feels the response of
\nMatter to the breath of the soul, sees the slow birth of a great
\nForce and follows its course of growth.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nNow,
\nafter the weak, tentative beginnings of life in the domain of Matter,
\nAswapathy sees the more definitive play of waking life. Life takes
\nstrange forms in which thinking sense begins to function. A
\nsensational order of life-creation comes into existence in the forms
\nof the insect, the small and the bigger animals, the python, the
\ndragon, the mastodon and the mammal; small human beings also appear.
\nIn man, Nature arrives at a high point in her evolutionary labour; a
\nnew stage in the growth of Consciousness begins with Nature becoming
\nself-aware in man.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthe animal creation around man, however, the play of consciousness is
\nperceived in the reactions of creatures to impacts from outside.
\nTheir life is driven by some need. The little mind that is there
\nlooks upon the environment as hostile; it is primarily a sense-mind
\nwhich cannot think on its own.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nEven
\nin men, at this stage, the sense-mentality governs. They live from
\nmoment to moment drawing as much joy from Nature as possible. The
\npleasures of the body are all that matter to them. Thought and
\nreflection are not yet. They are solely occupied with guarding
\nthemselves in a hostile world dominated by Death. Theirs is a small
\nphysical life built upon limited association for self-interest and,
\nfor the rest, unlimited slaughter and plunder. Communities clash and
\nwar with each other.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThrough
\nthis wrestle of life with All-Life grow the faculties of the
\nconcealed consciousness. Instinct, memory, adaptive skill, form
\nthemselves on the way to self-discovery. At this stage, however, the
\nevolving life has not yet developed the mind proper. What functions
\nis the life-mentality, mind involved in life. Search for the joy of
\nexistence, labour to build suitable embodiments for this rapture of
\nsense, is predominant.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nNext,
\nAswapathy sees a third order of life-creation. The mind proper is
\nunder formation as a result of pressure from the Mind-plane. Thought
\nbegins to enlighten act.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAt
\nfirst the mind-power works engulfed in the flow of embodied life.
\nThere is no overt thinking. Sensations, feelings, sub-conscious
\nwillings and desires abound. Gradually a seeing Power gathers their
\nconfused movements around one luminous point of awareness and forces
\nthe life-current to flow into form and shape, fashions the life-mind
\nin creatures.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nLife
\nassures herself by building walls of safety against the siege of
\ndeath. Knowledge begins to move in the field of Nescience, and the
\nsoul takes a definite existence in form. A restricted intelligence
\nbegins to act. A reason functions in the mould of a habitual Nature
\nruled by Ignorance. Thought moves within the narrow grooves of the
\nsegmented life. Its range and vision, however, are restricted to
\nparts and aspects which it mistakes for the whole. The mind is still
\nslave to the body.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nOut
\nof these small, obscure beginnings mind grows into a gleam of clarity
\nthough enclosed in a mass of Ignorance. Led by this slender thinking
\npower, life continues her monotonous play tied to her ground, running
\nher common rounds. The nature and scope of her play in her own world
\ndoes not change as it does in the earth-world. For her own world is
\nset to type, fixed in its mould, not governed by the law of evolution
\nand change.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nQuivering Uncertain World<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nquivering trepidant uncertain world
Born from that dolorous
\nmeeting and eclipse
Appeared in the emptiness where her feet had
\ntrod,
A quick obscurity, a seeking stir. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhere
\nLife first touches the formations of Matter that are founded on
\nInconscience, there is a quiver, a weak, uncertain throb of the
\noutermost ends of the consciousness that is involved in them. Life
\nundergoes an eclipse by the Nescience that characterises the inert
\nMatter, Matter stirs into the rudiments of life. Even in its very
\nobscurity Matter begins to vibrate and the seeking for release of the
\nimprisoned force of consciousness becomes articulate.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nWhat
\nis a meeting resulting in diminution and overcoming by obscurity for
\nLife, becomes the first hesitant birth into life for Matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Writhing
\nof Half-Conscious Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas a writhing of half-conscious force
Hardly awakened from
\ninconscient sleep
And tied to an instinct-driven Ignorance,
To
\nfind itself and find its hold on things. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nFrom
\nits spell of tranced sleep, the force of the involved consciousness
\nawakes. But it is hardly conscious; it is a part of the pervading
\nIgnorance goaded by some instinct\u2014instinct being the form taken
\nhere by the action of the concealed consciousness. This
\nsemi-conscious force moves helplessly, struggles to find its
\nbearings, to secure a hold on all that is around it. It strives to
\nbecome more and more self-aware and all-aware.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Blind
\nStriving<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInheritor
\nof poverty and loss,
Assailed by memories that fled when seized,
\n
Haunted by a forgotten uplifting hope,
It strove with a
\nblindness as of groping hands
To fill the aching and disastrous
\ngap
Between earth-pain and the bliss from which Life fell.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nhalf-conscious force is instinct with vague, fleeting memories of its
\npre-involution past when its innate consciousness and power had not
\nyet suffered the culminating negation in the downward plunge of the
\nSpirit. But now it is burdened with severe limitations inescapable in
\nthe conditions of its birth in the general Inconscience. However, the
\nimpelling urge for release from within drives it to articulate, to
\nspread itself into a movement that seeks to join earth-matter more
\nand more fully with the descending Life. This half-conscious force
\nstruggles to rise from its base of obscurity and the pain of
\nlimitation, of which it becomes aware as it gets sentient, to the
\nnative, blissful heights of Life from which Life precipitated itself
\nin its descent into inert earth-matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
World
\nof Unrest (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nworld that ever seeks for something missed,
Hunting for a joy
\nthat earth has failed to keep,
Too near to our gates its
\nunappeased unrest
For peace to live on the inert solid globe.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nworld of diminished and deformed Life is naturally in the throes of
\ndiscontent. It has, due to the assumption by inert and obscure
\nMatter, lost most of the power and bliss native to Life. Material
\nearth cannot assimilate and hold the gifts of Life in sufficient
\nmeasure and the Life-world close to it suffers from this lack due to
\nthe interpenetration that is incessant between the two. This want and
\nconstant striving for the missed joy in the lower planes of Life
\nclose to material earth is communicated to the world below with the
\nresult that there can be no settled peace, no contentment there.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
World
\nof Unrest (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nhas joined its hunger to the hunger of earth,
It has given the
\nlaw of craving to our lives,
It has made our spirit\u2019s need a
\nfathomless gulf. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nrestless urge of Life for a fuller joy and power in this world of the
\nlower formations of Life affects the nature of embodied life on
\nearth. The natural hunger of the emerging, half-conscious force in
\nmaterial evolution for more growth, more sentience and more joy of
\neffectuation is augmented by this longing from the Life-plane
\nimmediately above the physical earth. Life on earth throws itself in
\nconstant craving for what it has not. The need of the evolving being
\nappears endless. A maimed life-force has created a big want in the
\nevolutionary progression of the spirit on earth.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nEnters<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\nInfluence entered mortal night and day,
A shadow overcast the
\ntime-born race;
In the troubled stream where leaps a blind
\nheart-pulse
And the nerve-beat of feeling wakes in sense
\n
Dividing Matter\u2019s sleep from conscious Mind,
There strayed
\na call that knew not why it came. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWith
\nthe entry of Life in the material earth, a new situation comes to
\ndevelop. The inert mass is thrown into agitation. A kind of
\nmechanical throb of life starts in the centre of things; feeling
\nawakes in the movement of the senses providing in the process a link
\nbetween the sleep of Matter below and the consciousness of Mind
\nabove. This nervous feeling fills the gulf between the mind and the
\nbody. And on this scene enters also the restless urge of Life for
\ngrowth, for expansion, disturbing for ever the immobility of the
\nmaterial creation. This Life-force is not conscious like the Mind, it
\nis an automatic operation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Yearning
\nPassions<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nPower beyond earth\u2019s scope has touched the earth;
The repose
\nthat might have been can be no more;
A formless yearning passions
\nin man\u2019s heart,
A cry is in his blood for happier things:
Else
\ncould he roam on a free sunlit soil
With the childlike
\npain-forgetting mind of beasts
Or live happy, unmoved, like
\nflowers and trees. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis because of the advent and presence of this Life-Power on earth
\nthat the original statuesque poise of creation has been upset and a
\nvibrant movement imparted to its nature. Man is not allowed to stay
\ncontent, confined to his position like the plant creation or to live
\nfree, unaffected by pain and care like the animal one. He is
\npossessed by the life-impulse to expand himself, to go forth and
\nacquire what he has not, to gain and possess the greater and more
\nsatisfying riches of the Spirit of which he has some glimpses.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
The
\nMight has Stayed<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nMight that came upon the earth to bless
Has stayed on earth to
\nsuffer and aspire. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nDivine Consciousness-Force came down from its transcendent summits,
\nin the form of Life, to uplift, to vivify and to redeem the earth
\nlost in its trance of inconscience. But having awakened Matter, the
\nForce has not departed. It has stayed to impart its energism and
\ndirection to the awakened earth-spirit. It has chosen to live and
\nstruggle with the emerging spirit, helping it, sustaining it with its
\ninnate truth of light and power from within. That is why evolution,
\nprogress, is possible in spite of all the tremendous obstruction in
\nthis creation dominated by Ignorance, constantly pulled back by the
\nhold of the Inconscience.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Sorrow
\nthe Nurse of Destiny<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\ninfant laugh that rang through time is hushed:
Man\u2019s natural
\njoy of life is overcast
And sorrow is his nurse of destiny.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\noutbreak of Life brought with it a leaping joy on the desert of this
\ninert material creation. But it was soon overcome by the thick pall
\nof Inconscience and Insentience original to Matter. Joy dwindled and
\ngave place to sorrow, sorrow at the loss and lack of what makes for
\nfullness of life. But this sorrow it is that goads man to act, to
\nstrive to achieve fullness. His destiny grows out of the labour
\nimposed by the necessity of overcoming this gnawing sorrow. Pain and
\nsorrow are spurs to progress.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man
\nDiscontented<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nanimal\u2019s thoughtless joy is left behind,
Care and reflection
\nburden his daily walk:
He has risen to greatness and to
\ndiscontent,
He is awake to the Invisible. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nUnlike
\nthe animal who has practically no thought of pain and sorrow, either
\nin recollection or in anticipation, but is always occupied with the
\njoy of life of the moment, man is burdened with care and anxiety. The
\nmemory of past pain, the possibility of future suffering haunt him
\nand make his present struggle for existence doubly heavy. From the
\nunthinking satisfaction of the animal he has moved to perpetual
\ndiscontent with himself and the life around and, as a being endowed
\nwith will and thought, he is ever active to eliminate the causes of
\nthat discontent. In the process he progresses, he increases in
\nstature, he becomes conscious of what is beyond him, of what is
\nbehind the appearance of life and seeks to relate himself to that
\ngreater Reality, grow into it and thus break out of his bonds.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man
\nExplores<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInsatiate
\nseeker, he has all to learn:
He has exhausted now life\u2019s
\nsurface acts,
His being\u2019s hidden realms remain to explore.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nMan
\nis possessed with an unending desire to know, to get what he has not.
\nHis thought and his will ever strive towards this increasing
\npossession and indeed there is much in the universe inner and
\nouter\u2014for him to so acquire. What he has so far experienced and
\nmade natural to himself is only the skim of life whose depths still
\nremain to be plumbed. He is aware of only the surface levels of his
\nown existence; as he grows, he awakes to the profounder ranges of his
\nbeing behind the veil of outer nature and turns in their direction in
\norder to know and possess them in his consciousness.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man
\nGrows Lord of Nature<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHe
\nbecomes a mind, he becomes a spirit and self;
In his fragile
\ntenement he grows Nature\u2019s lord. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis striving for self-awareness and more and more all-awareness, the
\nunconscious or semi-conscious faculty of man develops into a
\nfull-fledged mind. Man becomes a mental being. He grows aware of the
\npresence of the soul in himself, an individual spirit that is not
\ninvolved in the workings of the outer ignorant nature, and discovers
\nhis identity with it. And one with this indwelling spirit, embodied
\nin howsoever transient a form, man grows into lordship over Nature.
\nHe is no more merely its creature, but begins to assume mastery over
\nher operations.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
In
\nMan Godhead Draws Near<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nhim Matter wakes from its long obscure trance,
In him earth feels
\nthe Godhead drawing near. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis in man first that evolving Matter arrives at the stage of
\nself-awareness. In the lower stages of development through the plant
\nand the animal belts, the state is one of sensation, of tentative
\nfeeling, of rudimentary formations of the vital mentality. Material
\nNature fully wakes up from its spell of sleep and obscurity in man.
\nAnd as he develops more and more his mental consciousness, the next
\nstep in the ladder of evolution draws near. The Spirit prepares to
\nmanifest and the earth feels the advent near.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nAwakes a Blind Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\neyeless Power that sees no more its aim,
A restless hungry energy
\nof Will,
Life cast her seed in the body\u2019s indolent mould;
It
\nwoke from happy torpor a blind Force
Compelling it to sense and
\nseek and feel. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nher downward course to earth from her own native plane above, Life
\nundergoes an inevitable diminution of the stuff of her consciousness.
\nIt is as a blind Power not overtly aware of its objective, as an
\nintensely seeking and active energy of an impelling Will, that it
\nenters into and activates the inert frame of Matter. As a result of
\nthis entry, a latent Force, the Force of involved Life, is released
\ninto movement and pressurised to react and respond. What was
\ninsentient is forced to awake and vibrate in sense activity, in
\nseeking and in feeling.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Mighty
\nPrisoner Struggles for Release<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthe enormous labour of the Void
Perturbing with her dreams the
\nvast routine
And dead roll of a slumbering universe
The
\nmighty prisoner struggled for release. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nForce of Life that is so awakened from her sleep in the involutive
\ntrance of Matter sets up a stir all over the vast and barren spread
\nof the universe. Her unconscious and semi-conscious impulses move
\ninto activity upsetting the prevailing order of slumber and inertia.
\nThe Force strives for fuller emergence and freedom of movement.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
She
\nKindles a Fire<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAlive
\nwith her yearning woke the inert cell,
In the heart she kindled a
\nfire of passion and need,
Amid the deep calm of inanimate things
\n
Arose her great voice of toil and prayer and strife. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nawakened Forcc of Life fills the form in which she is held with her
\nimpulsions and aspiration to grow, to emerge. Every part of the body
\nis propelled into this movement. The manifest constituent unit of the
\ncell is awakened from its swoon; the centre, the heart is set aflame
\nwith the intensity of the urge and the urgency of the call. The spell
\nof immobility is broken and the activity of the slowly emerging
\nconsciousness-force spreads out. She seeks, she aspires, she works,
\nshe struggles without cease.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Nothing
\nShe Knows<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\ngroping consciousness in a voiceless world,
A guideless sense was
\ngiven her for her road;
Thought was withheld and nothing now she
\nknew
But all the unknown was hers to feel and clasp. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nForce is not, at this stage, conscious; she does not possess the
\nknowledge of the course she is to take. The mind has not yet appeared
\nwith its thought-faculty to perceive, to cognise, to plan. The Force
\nis led by some kind of awareness that works tentatively, by a
\nreactive sense that functions mechanically without intelligence. She
\ncan only feel and hold but not know anything in the vast field that
\nstretches before her.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nNecessity to Know Awakes<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nObeying
\nthe push of unborn things towards birth
Out of her seal of
\ninsentient life she broke:
In her substance of unthinking mute
\nsoul-strength
That cannot utter what its depths divine,
Awoke
\na blind necessity to know. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThere
\nis in all things an incessant urge, an evolutionary nisus that pushes
\nout what is held captive within and makes manifestation possible. The
\ninvolved Life-Force in the sleep of insentience is thus pressured out
\nof material form. In her profound depths there is a consciousness
\nthat is awake and knows, but is not overtly active; she is not
\nactivated by the thinking intelligence, her innate strength is still
\nin potency. She is seized with an urgent need to know for only so can
\nshe become aware and function purposefully.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Instinct
\nis Hers<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nchain that bound her she made her instrument;
Instinct was hers,
\nthe chrysalis of Truth,
And effort and growth and striving
\nnescience. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nShe
\ndoes not know, she cannot move freely. She is confined and pressed
\ndown in many ways by the nescience of her base. But she uses the very
\nelements of this nescience for her growth. Knowledge is not there,
\nbut what is there as instinct is pressed into service; instinct turns
\nout to be but an automatic operation of a concealed intelligence
\nwithout the intervention of thinking and reasoning. It contains the
\nemerging truth in spontaneous action. Guided by this instinct and
\nupbuoyed by the evolutionary impulsion that presses from below, the
\nLife-Force grows and expands.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Inflicts
\nDesire and Hope<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInflicting
\non the body desire and hope,
Imposing on inconscience
\nconsciousness
She brought into Matter\u2019s dull tenacity
Her
\nanguished claim to her lost sovereign right,
Her tireless search,
\nher vexed uneasy heart,
Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for
\nchange. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWith
\nthe action of the Life-Force in the material form, a many-sided
\nmovement ensues. The rudiments of consciousness are stirred into
\ngathering force and the base of the inconscience of Matter is exerted
\nupon by a growing consciousness. The dull obscurity of Matter is
\npressed into an awakening, into a want and a call by the embodied
\nLife for what she has not but what she remembers as once her own:
\nlight, power, bliss. A restless search and striving for a change of
\nher extant state by Life takes momentum, though her direction is not
\nyet certain.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Rites
\nto Dwarf Gods<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAdorer
\nof a joy without a name,
In her obscure cathedral of delight
To
\ndim dwarf gods she offers secret rites. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nLife-Force seeks for the Joy ineffable. But she is enclosed in the
\nlimited, unlit edifice of the material form and though she derives a
\nlittle delight from the indwelling spirit at the core, she yields in
\nthe process to the many obscure and stunted elements of material
\nnature. Life is obliged to propitiate the little gods of Matter for
\nestablishing and organising herself in the material field.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Vain
\nSacrifice<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBut
\nvain unending is the sacrifice,
The priest an ignorant mage who
\nonly makes
Futile mutations in the altar\u2019s plan
And casts
\nblind hopes into a powerless flame. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nsacrifice on the part of Life to the little gods of the material
\nkingdom, however, is endless and not fruitful. Life may attempt to
\nchange the pattern of the constitution of material form but she fails
\nto evoke a seconding response from Matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Progress
\nby Deepened Need<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nburden of transient gains weighs down her steps
And hardly under
\nthat load can she advance;
But the hours cry to her, she travels
\non
Passing from thought to thought, from want to want;
Her
\ngreatest progress is a deepened need. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nher evolutionary movement ahead, Life is weighed down by the ballast
\nof Matter. Nothing she achieves is permanent; everything formulated
\nby her in the material field has to accept the gravity of Matter. But
\nshe is obliged by the nisus in her to advance and she does it
\nrelentlessly, tirelessly from stage to stage in the development of
\nsense, of awareness, of the faculty of thinking on the road of
\nevolution. The further she goes, the more she is spurred by the
\nnecessity to advance, to grow if she is to survive and organise
\nherself effectively. The inner need becomes more and more urgent as
\nshe develops in consciousness and this urgency ensures her
\ndevelopment. The deeper the need, the surer the effort to meet it and
\nthe larger the progress achieved.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nClaims the Heavens<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nMatter
\ndissatisfies, she turns to Mind;
She conquers earth, her field,
\nthen claims the heavens. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\nfinds herself handicapped in every direction by the very nature of
\nthe Matter in which she has cast herself. The insentience and inertia
\nof Matter checkmate her movements. Life then turns away from Matter
\nand goes on to form grades of self-awareness that develop into Mind.
\nAnd as she thus emerges into more conscious formulations of herself,
\nshe establishes her domain on earth. Thereafter she turns to annex to
\nher empire the kingdom of the Mind above her.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Transforming
\nLight<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInsensible,
\nbreaking the work she has done
The stumbling ages over her labour
\npass,
And still no great transforming light came down
And no
\nrevealing rapture touched her fall. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\nlabours, activates, forms and shapes forces in the universe. But her
\nwork is not allowed to stand permanently by the evolutionary Nature
\nwho has her own large aims and processes. No light from the Spirit
\nabove has yet illumined the Life-force and altered the nature of her
\nworkings, nor has any heartening bliss succoured her distress.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nGlimmer<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOnly
\na glimmer sometimes splits mind\u2019s sky
Justifying the ambiguous
\nprovidence
That makes of night a path to unknown dawns
Or a
\ndark clue to some diviner state. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThough
\nthis state of fallen and diminished Life is not yet redeemed by any
\ntransforming Light from the Spirit above, there are occasional
\noutbreaks of luminous rays on the horizon of the labouring
\nconsciousness. These interventions, however brief, testify to the
\nworkings of a higher\u2014and apparently complex\u2014intelligence that
\nmakes of opposite conditions a means and a way to brighter results.
\nDarkness is turned into a sure passage to light, difficult
\ncircumstances a mint of some higher and newer conditions in the
\nmaking.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Gropes
\nfor Knowledge<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nNescience began her mighty task,
In Ignorance she pursues the
\nunfinished work;
For Knowledge gropes, but meets not Wisdom\u2019s
\nface. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\noriginal conditions of the field of Life here on earth are those of a
\ntotal lack of consciousness. Slowly, as a result of her labours,
\nNescience yields to the awaking of an infant and partial
\nconsciousness, a state of Ignorance which is but a passage to a
\nfuller Knowledge, to an ampler Consciousness that is to be found. In
\nthis condition of Ignorance, Life is midway in her search for
\nKnowledge and strives to reach it in this direction or that. But the
\ngoal is not yet.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Ascends
\nSlowly<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAscending
\nslowly with unconscious steps,
A foundling of the gods she
\nwanders here
Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell
\n
Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nis the state of Life in her first beginnings in the material world.
\nShe is still an infant in her formation and only partially
\nself-aware, unsure of her steps in her slow movement upwards from the
\nsoil of Matter. Far away from her native glories, she is like a
\ndeserted and forlorn child. From the conditions of obscurity,
\nstruggle and pain in which she is, she makes her way through dense,
\nunclear passages feeling out for states of light, power and joy.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
He
\nMust Follow her Pace<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthis slow ascension he must follow her pace
Even from her faint
\nand dim subconscious start:
So only can earth\u2019s last salvation
\ncome. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nFor
\nso only could he know the obscure cause
Of all that holds us back
\nand baffles God
In the jail-delivery of the imprisoned soul.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAswapathy
\nmust needs follow the course traced by the Life-Force from her very
\nobscure beginnings if he is to know the precise cause that brings all
\ndifficulty and obstruction in the smooth evolution of the Spirit from
\nthe base of Matter and the free emergence of the soul bounded within.
\nHe has to be patient and tread every step that this Force has taken
\nin order to himself experience the nature of the difficulty with a
\nview to eventually finding the solution therefore.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Instincts<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAlong
\nswift paths of fall through dangerous gates
He chanced into a
\ngrey obscurity
Teeming with instincts from the mindless gulfs
\n
That pushed to wear a form and win a place. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAswapathy
\ntraces the line of the descent of Life into the densities of Matter
\nin order to follow closely its developments. He finds himself
\nprecipitated into domains of obscurity where Life meets Matter,
\nMatter wakes into Life. There is no mind yet. The awareness that
\ncomes to be is partial. It takes the form of instincts, unthought
\nspontaneous actions of a concealed consciousness which presses to
\narticulate and organise itself in living Matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nInstinct
\nis the first form taken by the emergent consciousness in embodied
\nLife.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nIntimate with Death<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nLife
\nhere was intimate with Death and Night
And ate Death\u2019s food
\nthat she might breathe awhile;
She was their inmate and adopted
\nwaif. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis obscure realm Life comes face to face with her contraries. She
\nis confronted by the darkness of Nescience and the threat of
\ncessation, Death. Life has to compromise herself and gain a respite
\nby adopting the consuming process of self-spending which assures
\ncontinued existence only until the supporting frame breaks down under
\nthe effort.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nLife
\nbecomes inseparably associated with Death and continually haunted by
\nthe darkness of failure of consciousness.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Accepts
\nSub-Conscience<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAccepting
\nsubconscience, in dumb darkness\u2019 reign
A sojourner, she hoped
\nnot any more. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAt
\nthe lowest levels Life falls under the spell of subconsciousness. She
\ndwells in conditions of mute darkness, within a belt of thick
\nobscurity. The hope and call for light and bliss, active on her
\nhigher levels of formulation, dies down. Life assumes a mechanical
\noperation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Dethroned
\nPower (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nfar away from Truth and luminous thought
He saw the original
\nseat, the separate birth
Of the dethroned, deformed and suffering
\nPower. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHere
\nin these lower regions Aswapathy espies the culminating stage of the
\ndeformation of Life where she has moved away the farthest from her
\nshining origins in the Consciousness of the manifesting Spirit and
\ngot fixed to a sense of separate existence leading to severe
\nself-limitation, deformation, strife and suffering. Life loses the
\ntruth of unity and is obliged to start a career on the basis of
\ndivisive confinement and helpless sub-conscience.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Dethroned
\nPower (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\nunhappy face of falsity made true,
A contradiction of our divine
\nbirth,
Indifferent to beauty and to light,
Parading she
\nflaunted her animal disgrace
Unhelped by camouflage, brutal and
\nbare, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nentire appearance of Life in these nether realms is contradictory to
\nits real nature on its own plane. Features of darkness,
\nsub-conscience, limitation and weakness totally deform her visage;
\nshe looks what intrinsically she is not. She is obliged to put on a
\nnature that does not respond to beauty and light in the Creation and
\nthen, forgetful of her true being, she proudly displays her
\nbrutalised state of insensitivity and cruelty.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Dethroned
\nPower (III)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\nauthentic image recognised and signed
Of her outcast force exiled
\nfrom heaven and hope,
Fallen, glorying in the vileness of her
\nstate,
The grovel of a strength once half divine,
The
\ngraceless squalor of her beast desires,
The staring visage of her
\nignorance,
The naked body of her poverty. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nappearance of Life, her nature, her action are all changed in this
\ncondition of her fall, so much changed that, forgetful of her
\nrightful dominion, she even glories in the wretchedness of her state.
\nHer high strength is unbelievably diminished and almost prone;
\nunsatisfied desires clamour. With severe limitations on all sides
\nthere appears a blank incomprehension in her look. Life is
\nimpoverished and bare.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nCrawls Out<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHere
\nfirst she crawled out from her cabin of mud
Where she had lain
\ninconscient, rigid, mute:
Its narrowness and torpor held her
\nstill,
A darkness clung to her uneffaced by Light. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis here that Life, lying involved in the inconscient Matter, first
\nbreaks away as a result of the pressure of the Life-Power descending
\nfrom the Life plane above. She is heavily weighted down with the
\ncharacteristics of her base viz. density, inertness, limitation and
\nan obscurity unrelieved by any light. She has to outgrow them in the
\ncourse of her evolution back into her own true nature.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nWallow<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nneared no touch redeeming from above:
The upward look was alien
\nto her sight,
Forgotten the fearless godhead of her walk;
\n
Renounced was the glory and felicity,
The adventure in the
\ndangerous fields of Time:
Hardly she availed, wallowing, to bear
\nand live. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhen
\nLife first begins slowly to emerge from its long imprisonment in the
\ndumb and inconscient Matter, she has more the nature of Matter than
\nher own. The power, the impetuosity, the joy and the glory that are
\nhers on her own plane of existence above are virtually absent here.
\nInstead, Life carries the handicaps of her material form. Her vision
\nis ever downwards, she is constantly pulled back and her career is
\nprecarious; she struggles to keep herself from extinction. She has
\nyet to acquire her characteristic movement of expansion and
\naffirmation. A more effective infusion of the power and light of Life
\nfrom the original Life plane is needed.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Unquiet
\nMist<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nwide unquiet mist of seeking space,
A rayless region swallowed in
\nvague swathes,
That seemed, unnamed, unbodied and unhoused,
A
\nswaddled visionless and formless mind,
Asked for a body to
\ntranslate its soul. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIts
\nprayer denied, it fumbled after thought. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEverything
\nin this region is vague, obscure, indefinite. There is a general
\nmovement towards formulation but nothing is steady, nothing so firm
\nthat it could be designated as such. There is a rudiment of
\nconsciousness seeking to cast itself into a form and centre but it is
\nunable to fix itself. It inclines merely to flow and shape itself
\ninto some form of thinking.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nWeird and Pigmy World<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAs
\nyet not powered to think, hardly to live,
It opened into a weird
\nand pigmy world
Where this unhappy magic had its source. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nBut
\nthe elements of life that have just awakened, the rudiments of
\nconsciousness that have just emerged into inchoate activity, are yet
\nto develop to the level of consistency and continuation needed to
\nmake thought or embodied life possible. What is now seen is a
\nquick-changing, unstable, undeveloped world where things appear and
\ndisappear as if by magic.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Where
\nLife and Matter Meet<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOn
\ndim confines where Life and Matter meet
He wandered among things
\nhalf-seen, half-guessed,
Pursued by ungrasped beginnings and lost
\nends. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThere
\nlife was born but died before it could live. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis region of the first meeting of Life and Matter, things are
\nnaturally obscure and mixed. Life is not completely of its own nature
\nfor it is entangled in and almost overcome by the density and
\nnescience of Matter; Matter is not fully Matter alone because the
\nelement of Life has entered into it and some levels have become
\nliving Matter. It looks as if life is and is not; it is overcome by
\nthe shadow of death soon after it comes into existence. Nothing is
\ncertain; before things are properly begun they are ended and new
\nelements come into being. All is in a flux in a general obscurity.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
No
\nSolid Ground<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas no solid ground, no constant drift;
Only some flame of
\nmindless Will had power. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHimself
\nwas dim to himself, half-felt, obscure,
As if in a struggle of
\nthe Void to be. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThere
\nis no fixity about anything, the material order having been disturbed
\nby the advent of life. The mind is not yet. What rules is a Will that
\nis inherent in things. Aswapathy finds that in this field of
\nobscurity he cannot have a full feeling of himself, his
\nownpersonality. He feels he is in the throes of an Emptiness that is
\ntrying to somehow exist.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nA
\npicture of vagueness, obscurity and struggle.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Mind
\nFlickers<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nstrange domains where all was living sense
But mastering thought
\nwas not nor cause nor rule,
Only a crude child-heart cried for
\ntoys of bliss,
Mind flickered, a disordered infant-glow,
And
\nrandom shapeless energies drove towards form
And took each
\nwisp-fire for a guiding sun. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis domain the mind is not established and organised. It is the
\nsenses that are alive and active. There is as yet no developed soul
\nas such; what is there is an entity in shaping, which seeks and looks
\nfor snatches of little joys. The rays of the unformed mind glow
\nweakly here and there and their brief reflections are mistaken for a
\nguiding light by the innumerable energies that strive to acquire
\ndistinct shape and form for embodiment\u2014for only so can they attain
\nand preserve individuality.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Blindfold
\nForce<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\nblindfold force could place no thinking step;
Asking for light
\nshe followed darkness\u2019 clue. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nforce at work has no waking intelligence of the mind to guide her.
\nShe moves as if blind. She seeks some light with which to see and
\nwork her way, but all that she has is a surrounding darkness, shadows
\nof inconscience and unconsciousness and she follows where she is led
\nby the elements of this darkness.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Sensations
\nCrowd<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\ninconscient Power groped towards consciousness,
Matter smitten by
\nMatter glimmered to sense,
Blind contacts, slow reactions beat
\nout sparks
Of instinct from a cloaked subliminal bed,
Sensations
\ncrowded, dumb substitutes for thought, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nis the realm below where inconscience struggles to emerge into
\nconsciousness. Awareness comes slowly and by degrees. When one
\nmaterial form comes into contact with another material form there is
\nan awakening of vague sensations (due to the presence of the life
\nelement). These sensations, as they multiply reveal themselves to be
\nmovements of an instinct from a deeper region behind the veil. It is
\nnot mental thought but a natural instinct of right response that
\nawakes within. This instinct is not articulate in the manner of
\nthought but nevertheless it is effective.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Perception
\nMechanical<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nPerception
\nanswered Nature\u2019s waking blows
But still was a mechanical
\nresponse,
A jerk, a leap, a start in Nature\u2019s dream, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nBut
\nNature is not content with these instinctive responses. She wants to
\nbring out more and more of awareness in the forms and to do this she
\ndeliberately delivers strong blows on them. These evoke a deeper
\nresponse in the form of perception\u2014not thought out, but a
\nspontaneous awareness. This perception, too, however, is not yet
\nconstant, not an established way of response. It comes all of a
\nsudden, more or less mechanically, a brief involuntary awakening.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Jostling
\nImpulses<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAnd
\nrude unchastened impulses jostling ran
Heedless of every motion
\nbut their own
And, darkling, clashed with darker than themselves,
\n
Free in a world of settled anarchy. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis a world of unregulated movement of impulses. They are not informed
\nby any overt intelligence. They are as if blind. Each rushes as it
\ntends, regardless of others; there is in consequence a general
\nfriction, a perpetual clash. This feature seems to stamp itself on
\nthe whole movement.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Struggle
\nto Survive<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nneed to exist, the instinct to survive
Engrossed the tense
\nprecarious moment\u2019s will
And an unseeing desire felt out for
\nfood. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis world of clash and disorder the sole preoccupation of each is
\nbut to survive. There is no firm maintaining will yet. Whatever
\nelement of will is operative affirms itself from moment to moment and
\nstrives to exist in its embodiment amidst the hostile environment.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nBesides,
\neach living form looks for nourishment from outside; it seeks to
\nsupport itself on another.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Brute
\nMotion<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\ngusts of Nature were the only law,
Force wrestled with force but
\nno result remained:
Only were achieved a nescient grasp and drive
\n
And feelings and instincts knowing not their source,
\n
Sense-pleasures and sense-pangs soon caught, soon lost,
And
\nthe brute motion of unthinking lives. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthis domain there is no ruling law except the violent movements of
\nNature. There is a perpetual combat of forces which leaves little of
\nconsequence. What is constant and patent is a mechanical,
\nsub-conscient and inconscient hold and drive of forces, the awakening
\nof brief sense-movements, instinctive reactions and feelings which
\npass no sooner than they appear. All is in a sub-mental, mechanical,
\nblinded motion.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Vain
\nUnnecessary World<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nwas a vain unnecessary world
Whose will to be brought poor and
\nsad results
And meaningless suffering and a grey unease.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nNothing
\nseemed worth the labour to become.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAll
\ntold this world, where Life meets Matter, presents a picture of vain
\neffort. All that comes of the transient will to affirm itself on this
\nshifting soil is friction, suffering and a general tension. What
\nlittle seems to be achieved is hardly worth the ceaseless effort that
\nhas made it possible.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nmeaning of the whole movement is yet to reveal itself. It is not
\npatent on the surface.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
He
\nSees the Purpose<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBut
\njudged not so his spirit\u2019s wakened eye. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAs
\nshines a solitary witness star
That burns apart, Light\u2019s lonely
\nsentinel,
In the drift and teeming of a mindless Night,
A
\nsingle thinker in an aimless world
Awaiting some tremendous dawn
\nof God,
He saw the purpose in the works of Time. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nBut
\nthis appearance does not deceive Aswapathy’s sight. His awakened eye
\npierces through it and perceives that there is a definite purpose
\nunderlying the apparently meaningless movement. Aswapathy is fully
\naware of his mission. He awaits a significant revelation of the glory
\nof God and though the world in which he now finds himself is so
\nstrange, so aimless in appearance, he sights God’s purpose in the
\nworkings presented before his eye.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nWork Done<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nEven
\nin that aimlessness a work was done
Pregnant with magic will and
\nchange divine. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAswapathy
\ncomes to see that even through all these meanderings, anarchic
\nclashes and friction, something definite is being achieved. All is
\npotent with a wondrous will, and a deliberate change from one order
\nof existence to another, higher, is being effected. Where all was
\nstill, inert and dead, a ceaseless movement has commenced. This
\nchange, he perceives, is the beginning of a mighty change leading
\ntowards the Divine.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
First
\nWrithings of Serpent Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nfirst writhings of the cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the
\nmystic ring of Matter\u2019s trance;
It raised its head in the warm
\nair of life. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nFrom
\nits involution in immobile Matter, the Conscious-Force, lying asleep
\nas it were, has awakened and by a slow and difficult movement shot up
\ninto the domain of life. The potential held in the womb of material
\nNature emerges into the open and breathes the fresh air of life, life
\nwhich has pressured from above the emergence from below.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Stiffening
\nSleep Not Yet Cast Off<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\ncould not cast off yet Night\u2019s stiffening sleep
Or wear as yet
\nmind\u2019s wonder-flecks and streaks,
Put on its jewelled hood the
\ncrown of soul
Or stand erect in the blaze of spirit\u2019s sun.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nConscious-Force that has emerged out of the containing trance of
\nMatter is, however, still under partial grip of the torpor and
\ninertia natural to Matter; it has not yet touched the level of the
\nMind and put on its nature; neither has it yet awakened to the truth
\nof the soul; nor has it yet grown to its full stature so as to
\nreceive in full the radiations of the Spirit.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Secret
\nCrawl of Consciousness<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAs
\nyet were only seen foulness and force,
The secret crawl of
\nconsciousness to light
Through a fertile slime of lust and
\nbattening sense, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis only the element of force that is patent at this stage along with
\nits refuse in the process of being cast off. The consciousness is
\nstill inchoate on the surface; it is striving under the veil to
\nemerge into the open light through the passage of the plentiful and
\nexpanding activity of the gross senses. It articulates itself and
\nbuilds its instrumentation through the operation of its lustful and
\ndominating senses.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Ferment
\nin the Dark<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBeneath
\nthe body\u2019s crust of thickened self
A tardy fervent working in
\nthe dark,
The turbid yeast of Nature\u2019s passionate change,
\n
Ferment of the soul\u2019s creation out of mire. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nBelow
\nthe hard crust of dense Matter, in the obscurity of the
\nsub-conscient, there is a slow but persistent movement gathering
\nforce, communicating itself in all directions, pressing for a change
\nfrom the original state of nescience and immobility of Matter into an
\norder of life-movement and consciousness. It is the stir of the soul,
\nthe spirit that is manifesting out of the lowest soil of Matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Labour
\nto Release the Glory of God<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nheavenly process donned this grey disguise,
A fallen ignorance in
\nits covert night
Laboured to achieve its dumb unseemly work,
A
\ncamouflage of the Inconscient\u2019s need
To release the glory of
\nGod in Nature\u2019s mud. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAll
\nthis movement of an apparently mechanical Force really conceals a
\nplanned operation of an Intelligence under the mask of Ignorance. The
\nstruggle to live, to become aware, in an environment of death and
\nnescience looks hopeless, vain. But it is really a process of working
\nout an imperative necessity in the inconscient Matter; the glory of
\nGod, the Divine Consciousness concealed in the womb of Matter presses
\nincessantly for release from its imprisonment, into the domain of
\nMatter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nDivine Consciousness is already there embedded in Matter and that is
\nwhy it seeks to be delivered to manifest itself in the world of
\nMatter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
He
\nScans the Secrets<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHis
\nsight, spiritual in embodying orbs,
Could pierce through the grey
\nphosphorescent haze
And scan the secrets of the shifting flux
\n
That animates these mute and solid cells
And leads the
\nthought and longing of the flesh
And the keen lust and hunger of
\nits will. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAswapathy’s
\nspiritual sight is able to get through this dull glitter of the whole
\nscene and perceive and follow the process and direction of the
\nMovement that activates insensate Matter, whips up desire, creates in
\nthe will a longing and need to extend and grasp.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAll
\nthese lines of the Movement constitute, so to say, the wheels of
\nevolutionary progress from the dumb beginnings in Matter to the
\nemergence of the conscious mind and will in Man.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
He
\nTraces the Miraculous Fount<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\ntoo he tracked along its hidden stream
And traced its acts to a
\nmiraculous fount. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAswapathy
\nnot merely sights the workings of the Movement but scrutinises to
\ndiscover from where it originates. He traces the Movement across the
\ndim spaces of its path and arrives at its source which is indeed
\nmiraculous. It is miraculous because out of that apparently nescient
\nVoid springs all that takes shape in the Manifestation under way.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Nerve-Link<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nmystic Presence none can probe nor rule,
Creator of this game of
\nray and shade
In this sweet and bitter paradoxical life,
Asks
\nfrom the body the soul\u2019s intimacies
And by the swift vibration
\nof a nerve
Links its mechanic throbs to light and love. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAt
\nthe root of all this play of light and darkness on the soil of
\nearthly life which is characterised by the dualities of joy and pain
\nand other contradictories, there is the Spirit that cannot be plumbed
\nmuch less regulated. It is this Spirit that goads the whole Movement
\nand works out its intention through a myriad processes. It vivifies
\nMatter with its own breath and forces the physical body to tune
\nitself to transmit the vibrations of the soul. It links up the
\nmaterial frame of the body to the consciousness of the embodied
\nSpirit by means of the nerve which is the channel of the life-force.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nnerve-channels\u2014physical and subtle\u2014form the connecting link
\nbetween the physical body and the consciousness embodied in the mind.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Sleeping
\nMemories<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nsummons the spirit\u2019s sleeping memories
Up from subconscient
\ndepths beneath Time\u2019s foam;
Oblivious of their flame of happy
\ntruth,
Arriving with heavy eyes that hardly see,
They come
\ndisguised as feelings and desires,
Like weeds upon the surface
\nfloat awhile
And rise and sink on a somnambulist tide. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nDue
\nto the pressure of the embodied Spirit, all the impressions and
\nmemories of events, thoughts, feelings which have taken place and
\nsunk into the depths below the conscious layers of the being, rise up
\npell-mell when the awareness is dull and weak. They are not fully
\narticulate nor are they conscious. They are mechanical. They rush up
\nin the form of confused feelings and desires, stay for a while and
\nthen sink down again with the passing of the torpor. They are not
\nreal desires or conscious feelings but appearances assumed by the
\nsubconscient movements rising up during moments of fading or
\nsuspension of awareness and going down when those conditions are no
\nmore.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\npressure of the conscious Spirit within throws them up again and
\nagain so as to expose them to the light of the overt consciousness
\nfor elimination.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Heaven-Truth
\nBroods<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nImpure,
\ndegraded though her motions are,
Always a heaven-truth broods in
\nlife\u2019s deeps;
In our obscurest members burns that fire.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\ntruth
\nbehind the misleading exterior. This truth deriving from the Spirit
\nis what really keeps the movement going, impels it ultimately towards
\nthe intended direction despite all meanderings and wrong steps. It
\ngoes on working and urging from behind the veil, gathering force for
\nits emergence when conditions are ready for it. Even in the most
\nunenlightened parts there is deep within this flame of truth, the
\ntruth-will, and that is their real raison-d’\u00eatre.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Beauty
\nMirroring Delight<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\ntouch of God\u2019s rapture in creation\u2019s acts,
A lost remembrance
\nof felicity
Lurks still in the dumb roots of death and birth,
\n
The world\u2019s senseless beauty mirrors God\u2019s delight. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAll
\ncreation has come into being on the wave of a surge of Bliss from the
\nSupreme. Every form, every movement is a projection of this creative
\nBliss which, however, may not be apparent on the surface of life. But
\nit is there at the root of all, as much behind the phenomenon of
\ndeath as behind birth. It may not be articulate but an indelible
\nmemory of this origin in Bliss is there stamped on some layer or
\nother of each existence. Even when the senses are not awake in the
\nearth-creation to take cognisance of this delight, there is still a
\nBeauty which is really a reflection, a self-projection in form, of
\nthe Bliss of the Creator. <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBliss
\nrendering itself into form is Beauty.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Secret
\nRapture<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThat
\nrapture\u2019s smile is secret everywhere;
It flows in the wind\u2019s
\nbreath, in the tree\u2019s sap,
Its hued magnificence blooms in
\nleaves and flowers. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nDelight of the Creator is present everywhere though it may not
\nreadily lend itself to be sensed directly as such. It is there behind
\nthe surface-veil, in the invigorating breath of the wind, in the
\nlife-giving essence of the tree. It sparkles in the colourful
\nblossoming of flowers and leaves\u2014it is present throughout the plant
\ncreation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nCreative
\nDelight projects itself in the form of entrancing beauty, nourishing
\ncreation as its life-essence. As the Upanishad puts it, who indeed
\ncould live if there were not this Bliss within?<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life’s
\nRhythms<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nWhen
\nlife broke through its half-drowse in the plant
That feels and
\nsuffers but cannot move or cry,
In beast and in winged bird and
\nthinking man
It made of the heart\u2019s rhythm its music\u2019s beat;
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthe plant-stage of evolution life pulsates and vibrates in sensation
\nand feeling, but she has not yet arrived at the level of articulation
\nnor of movement. There is still the spell of the half-outgrown sleep
\nof Matter’s trance. But when life crosses into the animal belt of its
\nevolution, she organises herself and functions in wide-awake measured
\nrhythms of the heartbeats.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Pleasure
\nand Pain<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nforced the unconscious tissues to awake
And ask for happiness and
\nearn the pang
And thrill with pleasure and laughter of brief
\ndelight,
And quiver with pain and crave for ecstasy. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAs
\nlife develops and courses through the evolving bodies of the animal
\nand man, the cells and tissues of the material organism are awakened
\nfrom their unconscious state and delivered into a state of conscious
\nsensation. They seek for joyous sensations, respond with pleasurable
\nvibrations, participate in the inevitable reactions of suffering and
\ndelight.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Life
\nPresses on Nerve<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nImperative,
\nvoiceless, ill-understood,
Too far from light, too close to
\nbeing\u2019s core,
Born strangely in Time from the eternal Bliss,
\n
It presses on heart\u2019s core and vibrant nerve; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\nis loaded with a self-effectuating will, but not informed with an
\narticulate thought. That is why she forces her way but is unable to
\nmake her intention evident. She derives indeed from the Bliss aspect
\nof the Satchidananda but the diminution and deformation undergone in
\nthe course of its devolution have resulted in a great gulf between
\nthe Consciousness at its origin and at its field of operation in the
\nheart of Matter. In this state, to evoke the delight of existence,
\nlife goes on putting pressure upon the centre of the heart, the seat
\nof feelings and emotions, and on the awakened nerves which react to
\nimpacts and carry the sensations throughout the body.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Desire
\nLeaps Out<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIts
\nsharp self-seeking tears our consciousness;
Our pain and pleasure
\nhave that sting for cause;
Instinct with it, but blind to its
\ntrue joy
The soul\u2019s desire leaps out towards passing things.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis this urge of the life-force for self-effectuation, for
\nself-aggrandisement, that exerts pressure on the consciousness
\nforcing it to go out through the doors of the senses, seize
\nenjoyment\u2014and in the process, as its reaction, suffer pain\u2014and
\nform an enlarging field of experience and exploitation for itself.
\nThe desire that is thus built up darts at objects and exerts itself
\nfor drawing enjoyment, unaware of the fact that the true and lasting
\nsource of joy is within the being itself, in the delight of the soul
\nat the core.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Ecstasy
\nof the Infinite<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAll
\nNature\u2019s longing drive none can resist,
Comes surging through
\nthe blood and quickened sense;
An ecstasy of the infinite is her
\ncause. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAnd
\nin fact the true cause of this seeking for delight in Nature is not
\nin external objects as it appears to the mentality in ignorance.
\nThere is a self-existent bliss, boundless in itself, at the core of
\neach being and consciousness and it is the impulsion of this bliss to
\nrealise itself in life coursing through the body and the sharpened
\nsenses that drives nature irresistibly to seek out the delight.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Turn
\nto Finite Loves<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nturns in us to finite loves and lusts,
The will to conquer and
\nhave, to seize and keep,
To enlarge life\u2019s room and scope and
\npleasure\u2019s range,
To battle and overcome and make one\u2019s own,
\n
The hope to mix one\u2019s joy with other\u2019s joy,
A yearning to
\npossess and be possessed,
To enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to
\nlive. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nurge of self-delight in the soul renders itself variously at the
\nvarious levels of the being. Though infinite in itself, this delight
\nturns into finite channels for its effectuation. It takes in nature
\nthe form of the desire to possess, to love, to enjoy, to enlarge the
\nfield of possession, to aggrandise, to fight and will for
\nexploitation, to increase by adding to itself more and more from
\noutside, to heighten enjoyment by a reverse process of being enjoyed.
\nIn a word, it suffuses every feeling, every movement of life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Brief
\nAttempt to Be<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHere
\nwas its early brief attempt to be,
Its rapid end of momentary
\ndelight
Whose stamp of failure haunts all ignorant life.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nwill-to-delight finds its first overt expression with the birth of
\nlife in matter. With each breath of life the will affirms itself but
\nthe life is soon extinguished and with it the attempt of the delight
\nto exist and expand. And so is it destined to be as long as life,
\nwhich is its instrument and its field, is under the shadow of
\nIgnorance which is a product and a projection of the basic
\nInconscience at the roots. This fact of Ignorance entails a mortal
\ndisability on the life-force and therefore on the will-to-delight
\nwhich seeks to effectuate itself through life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Evil
\nStart Pursues<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInflicting
\nstill its habit on the cells
The phantom of a dark and evil start
\n
Ghostlike pursues all that we dream and do. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\noriginal failure of the will-to-be, of the will-to-delight to
\novercome the hold of decay and death has become ingrained as a habit
\nand it pursues as an evil shadow all subsequent developments of the
\neffort of life to affirm and organise herself. Even if the hold is
\nloosened in the more developed evolutes of life, it is there firm on
\nthe constituting cells of the body that the life inhabits and the
\ncells give way, betraying life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Roots
\nof Will<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAlthough
\non earth are firm established lives,
A working of habit or a
\nsense of law,
A steady repetition in the flux,
Yet are its
\nroots of will ever the same;
These passions are the stuff of
\nwhich we are made. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWith
\nall these adverse conditions, however, with allthe settled laws of
\ngrowth, decay and death operat Mg on earth, of fixed habits of nature
\nin the midst of all the flux of life, the will-to-live, to seize, to
\nenjoy, to keep, persists. All life-movement is a surge of that
\nincessant will to affirm itself.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Fount
\nof Life<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\nwas the first cry of the awaking world. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nclings around us still and clamps the god. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEven
\nwhen reason is born and soul takes form,
In beast and reptile and
\nin thinking man
It lasts and is the fount of all their life.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nlife-impulse to affirm and aggrandise itself, this desire to possess
\nand enjoy, is the motive force that propels the world-movement from
\nthe very beginning. It has been at once the activating motor as also
\nthe tether which holds back the evolving being from a wider and a
\nloftier flight. For even with the advent of thought and reason in the
\nmind, even with the effective articulation of the spirit, the old,
\nprimitive urge of life-desire continues and forms the mainspring of
\nlife’s activities.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Purpose<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\ntoo was needed that breath and living might be. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nspirit in a finite ignorant world
Must rescue so its prisoned
\nconsciousness
Forced out in little jets at quivering points
From
\nthe Inconscient\u2019s sealed infinitude. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThen
\nslowly it gathers mass, looks up at Light. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nimpulse, however, has fulfilled a purpose in Nature. It has provided
\nthe needed incentive and goad for the effort of the spirit to free
\nits consciousness imprisoned in inconscient Matter. It is only as
\nmore and more of this consciousness is released in life, however
\nprecariously, however insignificantly, that the life-force can
\neffectuate itself more and yet more. The will in life draws out the
\nconcealed consciousness for only so could it be more and more
\neffective. As the movement of this emergence of the consciousness
\ngathers momentum at its thousand points of action, the consciousness
\ntakes shape and body and turns its direction upward to the Light
\nabove, aspires for it.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Clutch
\nof Nether Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\nNature lives tied to her origin,
A clutch of nether force is on
\nher still;
Out of unconscious depths her instincts leap;
A
\nneighbour is her life to insentient Nought. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nUnder
\nthis law an ignorant world was made. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nNature
\nat this stage of evolution of life in Matter is heavily under the
\nclutches of the Nescience at the material base. The weight of
\nInconscience constantly pulls downwards. Even the instincts that
\nguide nature’s movements come up from regions that are unconscious.
\nThey are not conscious perceptions. Life-movement is very close to
\nthe insentience of dense Matter and is in constant danger of being
\noverpowered by it.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThis
\nworld of ignorance has indeed come to be in the shadow of Nescience,
\nits movement always subject to the weight and pull of the
\nInconscience below.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Saving
\nPlunge of the Being<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthe enigma of the darkened Vasts,
In the passion and self-loss of
\nthe Infinite
When all was plunged in the negating Void,
\n
Non-Being\u2019s night could never have been saved
If Being had
\nnot plunged into the dark
Carrying with it its triple mystic
\ncross. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhen
\nin the course of its devolution the manifesting Spirit arrived at the
\nnadir of its downward plunge and lost itself in its exclusive
\nconcentration, all became a Void. There was only darkness, a vast
\nnegation, a veritable Night. And so it would have remained but for
\nthe purposive descent of the Conscious Being of Satchidananda into
\nthis dark Void, sacrificing itself in its threefold nature of
\nTruth-existence, Consciousness Force and Bliss which underwent a
\nchange into its opposite in the conditions of the fall. Because of
\nthis entry and presence of the Conscious Being\u2014however masked\u2014it
\nhas been possible for light to emerge out of darkness, consciousness
\nout of nescience.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Sacrifice<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInvoking
\nin world-time the timeless truth,
Bliss changed to sorrow,
\nknowledge made ignorant,
God\u2019s force turned into a child\u2019s
\nhelplessness
Can bring down heaven by their sacrifice. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis the self-sacrifice of the Divine Purusha that makes the redemption
\nof this creation from the depths of Nescience possible. Because the
\ntimeless Truth of the eternal has chosen to embody itself in time,
\nbecause the Bliss of the Supreme has put on the nature of sorrow,
\nbecause Consciousness has undergone the change into nescience, and
\nthe irresistible Force of that consciousness turned into a struggling
\nmovement, the Creation even under these contrary conditions can be
\nsaved. The Truth and its Powers can unveil themselves in this
\nCreation because they have chosen to dwell there in its womb waiting
\nfor this hour.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Contradiction<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\ncontradiction founds the base of life:
The eternal, the divine
\nReality
Has faced itself with its own contraries;
Being
\nbecame the Void and Conscious-Force
Nescience and walk of a blind
\nEnergy
And Ecstasy took the figure of world-pain. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nCreation starts its career on a base of contradiction. For the
\ncreative Sat-Chit-Ananda is confronted at the end of its downward
\nplunge with a totally opposite formation of itself. Sat, the
\nTruth-Existence, has disappeared into a negative vacancy, a Void;
\nChit, Consciousness, has become Nescience, absence of Consciousness;
\nShakti, Force of Consciousness, is changed into a mechanical,
\nunconscious Energy; and Bliss has undergone a virtual transformation
\ninto pain.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nis from this soil of opposites that the Creation blossoms; its nature
\nis consequently riddled with contraries.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Wisdom’s
\nAeonic Game<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\na mysterious dispensation\u2019s law
A Wisdom that prepares its
\nfar-off ends
Planned so to start her slow aeonic game. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAnd
\nyet, even in this configuration of contraries there is a seeing
\nWisdom, prajna, at work. What has taken place is in the working out
\nof a possibility seen in the self-vision and sanctioned by the
\ntruth-will of the Supreme. It is the slow unrolling of a process
\nleading towards a pre-figured end.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Game
\nof Hide-And-Seek<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nblindfold search and wrestle and fumbling clasp
Of a half-seen
\nNature and a hidden Soul,
A game of hide and seek in twilit
\nrooms,
A play of love and hate and fear and hope
Continues in
\nthe nursery of mind
Its hard and heavy romp of self-born twins.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAs
\nLife builds itself in the material world, there starts a game of
\nhide-and-seek between the Soul which is yet hidden and Nature which
\nreveals herself only partly. It is a game played in the half-light of
\na slow, emerging consciousness, a play of tentative graspings and
\nescapes. Even with the advent of the mind, the game continues,
\nperhaps even more vigorously: Soul and Nature\u2014the inseparable Two,
\nborn with the Creation\u2014play to find and possess each other through
\nall phases of attraction and repulsion, hope and fear.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
The
\nTwo Embrace<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAt
\nlast the struggling Energy can emerge
And meet the voiceless
\nBeing in wider fields;
Then can they see and speak and, breast to
\nbreast,
In a larger consciousness, a clearer light,
The Two
\nembrace and strive and each know each
Regarding closer now the
\nplaymate\u2019s face. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWith
\nthe progressive enlargement of the reign of mind and the growth of
\nself-aware consciousness, the fugitive nature of the play between
\nSoul and Nature changes its character. Nature-Energy comes out of her
\nhiding behind the veil of unconsciousness and meets her playmate in
\nlarger areas of life, under a fuller light of the self-organising
\nConsciousness. Soul and Nature recognise each other and begin to
\ncollaborate.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Aswapathy
\nHears the Faint Rhythms<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nEven
\nin these formless coilings he could feel
Matter\u2019s response to
\nan infant stir of soul. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nNature he saw the mighty Spirit concealed,
Watched the weak birth
\nof a tremendous Force,
Pursued the riddle of Godhead\u2019s
\ntentative pace,
Heard the faint rhythms of a great unborn Muse.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\nthe first movements that take place, even before the appearance of
\nforms, Aswapathy feels here\u2014where Life meets Matter the response of
\nMatter to the first stirrings of the soul concealed within; he sees
\nbehind the apparent struggling Nature a great Spirit at work; he
\nwitnesses the slow and hesitant emergence of a Force that is of great
\npower; he follows the enigmatic course of the uncertain steps of the
\nevolving Godhead\u2014enigmatic because the Godhead is conscient, knows
\nits way and goal and yet is tentative in its steps\u2014and he catches
\ndistantly the rhythms of a Harmony in shaping.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Fierier
\nBreath of Life<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThen
\ncame a fierier breath of waking life,
And there arose from the
\ndim gulf of things
The strange creations of a thinking sense,
\n
Existences half-real and half-dream. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nscene of the first beginnings of life in Matter is followed by
\nanother where life is more pronounced, more forceful, more conscious.
\nThe sense that was inchoate and mechanical before becomes more
\nconscious. New creations follow. They are strange, they are and they
\nare not. Forms begin to take shape but before they are able to do so
\nfully, they are gone.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Brief
\nand Blind<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nlife was there that hoped not to survive:
Beings were born who
\nperished without trace,
Events that were a formless drama\u2019s
\nlimbs
And actions driven by a blind creature will. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\nis uncertain of itself yet. Creatures that are born disappear soon.
\nThings take place in the Movement but without any obvious
\nsignificance. Activity is impelled by the mechanical force of an
\nunconscious will that is itself subject to something else, not free.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Forms<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nseeking Power found out its road to form,
Patterns were built of
\nlove and joy and pain
And symbol figures for the moods of Life.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nConsciousness-Force that is emergent in the form of Life finds ways
\nand means to build forms for its embodiment. These forms are designed
\nto express and signify particular poises of the coursing Life. They
\nare also shaped to house the movements of love, joy and pain.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Rapture
\nand Agonies<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\ninsect hedonism fluttered and crawled
And basked in a sunlit
\nNature\u2019s surface thrills,
And dragon raptures, python agonies
\n
Crawled in the marsh and mire and licked the sun. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\ntakes queer shapes in her attempt to establish and organise her reign
\nin Matter. She takes the light and frail form of the insect which
\nexpresses its happiness in its fluttering and tremulous movements and
\nits brief bursts of joy in a sunlit Nature. She takes form in fierce
\nanimals like the dragon and enjoys stronger raptures and joys. She
\nrolls in agony through the form of the python and assumes lowly forms
\nthat crawl in the bog and mire and lick the rays of the sun as they
\nfall on their slimy environment.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Huge
\nCreatures and Pigmy Tribes<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHuge
\narmoured strengths shook the frail quaking ground,
Great puissant
\ncreatures with a dwarfish brain,
And pigmy tribes imposed their
\nsmall life-drift. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\ngoes on to assume huge forms, massive in strength, but puny in brain,
\nlike the mastodon. She evolves even the human form though tiny in
\nsize at first. These humans are primitive in their development, they
\nlet their own life-movement\u2014short-ranged as it is\u2014drift where it
\nwill but impose their life-will on the rest of the earth. And this
\nthey are able to do because they possess brains more developed than
\nthose of other creatures, however physically huge and strong they may
\nbe.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man
\nthe Master-Point<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\na dwarf model of humanity
Nature now launched the extreme
\nexperience
And master-point of her design\u2019s caprice,
Luminous
\nresult of her half-conscious climb
On rungs twixt her sublimities
\nand grotesques
To massive from infinitesimal shapes,
To a
\nsubtle balancing of body and soul,
To an order of intelligent
\nlittleness. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nMan,
\nthough so pigmy-like in appearance at this stage, represents a high
\nculmination of the effort of evolutionary Nature which has taken a
\nlong and difficult route with amazing variations in her techniques of
\nformation, adaptation, alteration\u2014starting from minute forms and
\nerupting into giant bodies, varying from ungainly shapes to beautiful
\nones, with only a half-conscious instrumental Force. Nature has
\nclimbed up the ladder of evolution, repeatedly experimenting to
\nattain a balance between the form and the soul inhabiting it, and has
\narrived at a stage when a kind of intelligence, a conscious
\nmind\u2014however small in its range\u2014has been formed and begins to
\ngovern the life-movement. In man she has emerged from the belt of
\nsemi-consciousness into that of consciousness. A new order of
\nevolutionary progression begins with man’s advent.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Kingdom
\nof Animal Self (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAround
\nhim in the moment-beats of Time
The kingdom of the animal self
\narose,
Where deed is all and mind is still half-born
And the
\nheart obeys a dumb unseen control. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAround
\nman in whom the mental intelligence has just begun to organise itself
\nis an environment that is still governed by the animal spirit.
\nActivity goes on, self-propelled as it were, and all is geared to it.
\nThe mind is not yet evolved enough to assume control. What the heart
\nobeys in its movements is some factor whose promptings are unseen,
\nhidden behind a veil and inarticulate in terms of thought or speech.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Kingdom
\nof Animal Self (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nForce that works by the light of Ignorance,
Her animal experiment
\nbegan,
Crowding with conscious creatures her world-scheme;
But
\nto the outward only were they alive,
Only they replied to touches
\nand surfaces
And to the prick of need that drove their lives.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nanimal world is run by the Force of evolving Nature acting in a
\npervading Ignorance. The various creatures that people this Creation
\nshow their element of consciousness mostly by their reactions to
\nimpacts from outside. If they show any awareness of something within
\nthemselves, it is to the goad of hunger, of want, to which they
\nrespond and go into answering action.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Animal
\nMind (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nbody that knew not its own soul within,
There lived and longed,
\nhad wrath and joy and grief;
A mind was there that met the
\nobjective world
As if a stranger or enemy at its door:
Its
\nthoughts were kneaded by the shocks of sense; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nbody of the animal is not at all aware that there is a soul dwelling
\nwithin itself. To the creature the body itself constitutes its self,
\nit lives with its desires and passions, its joys and griefs. The
\nlittle mind it has looks upon the world around it as something
\ndifferent and alien, something hostile, to itself. Its senses react
\nwith vibrations of shock to contacts from outside and these
\nvibrations project themselves in its mentality as its thoughts. There
\nis no real thinking as yet; what takes place in the mind is a reflex
\nof the sensations.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Animal
\nMind (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\ncaptured not the spirit in the form,
It entered not the heart of
\nwhat it saw;
It looked not for the power behind the act,
It
\nstudied not the hidden motive in things
Nor strove to find the
\nmeaning of it all. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nmind stops with the appearance of the forms it meets with; it does
\nnot grasp what is in them. It does not perceive the power behind an
\nact; it thinks the act is all. Nor does it dwell upon the possible
\nmotive in movements that go on in the world. It does not strive at
\nall to know the meaning of life. It is content to live without trying
\nto understand the purpose of it all.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Physical
\nMan<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBeings
\nwere there who wore a human form;
Absorbed they lived in the
\npassion of the scene,
But knew not who they were or why they
\nlived:
Life had for them no aim save Nature\u2019s joy
And the
\nstimulus and delight of outer things;
They worked for the body\u2019s
\nwants, they craved no more,
Content to breathe, to feel, to
\nsense, to act,
Identified with the spirit\u2019s outward shell.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEven
\nmen at this stage are animals in all but in form. Excepting in their
\nform which is human, in everything else they are like the other
\ncreatures of the animal world. Their life is filled with the passion
\nof the general movement; they are not at all self-aware and it does
\nnot occur to them to know who they are or why they live. Their one
\nobject of exertion III life is to draw as much enjoyment as can be
\nderived from the objects and movements of Nature. The body is all
\nthat matters and their whole life is occupied with meeting its
\ndemands for satisfaction; they do not look beyond it. They are
\nsatisfied with the normal routine of living in the physical
\nbody\u2014breathing, feeling, sensing, acting. They are completely
\nidentified with the body which is but the outer form of the
\nindwelling soul.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThis
\ntype of human is the physical man.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Veiled
\nSpectator<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nveiled spectator watching from their depths
Fixed not his inward
\neye upon himself
Nor turned to find the author of the plot,
He
\nsaw the drama only and the stage. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nbeing within, the soul, however, is not asleep. It is awake watching
\nas if from behind a veil all that goes on, and it is this very regard
\nof the witness soul that keeps the movement going. The perceiving
\nconsciousness is not yet turned on itself, it is watching the flow of
\nthe movement outward. That is why the course of life flows thereward.
\nNor does it seek to know as yet the real Source and Impeller of this
\nlife-movement. The attention is fastened on the developing action of
\nthe life-drama and on the ground of the being on which it takes
\nplace.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nLife
\nis the drama, the embodiment is the stage, the soul within is the
\nspectator.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Infant
\nMind (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas no brooding stress of deeper sense,
The burden of reflection
\nwas not borne:
Mind looked on Nature with unknowing eyes,
Adored
\nher boons and feared her monstrous strokes. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\ncapacity to cogitate and reflect is not yet. The mind does not seek
\nto understand Nature; it just registers what passes before it. By
\nhabit of experience it knows what impacts from Nature are pleasurable
\nand what are painful; accordingly it cherishes and looks for the
\nformer, fears and shrinks from the latter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Infant
\nMind (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\npondered not on the magic of her laws,
It thirsted not for the
\nsecret wells of Truth,
But made a register of crowding facts
And
\nstrung sensations on a vivid thread: <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nmind does not yet exert itself to explore the processes of the
\nworkings of Nature. It has no compelling wish or desire to understand
\nthe operations of Truth concealed behind the surface appearances of
\nthings and grow in its knowledge. It only registers impacts, reacts
\nto them and whatever experiences are received through the senses, it
\npreserves in the form of a living memory.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Infant
\nMind (III)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nhunted and it fled and sniffed the winds,
Or slothed inert in
\nsunshine and soft air:
It sought the engrossing contacts of the
\nworld,
But only to feed the surface sense with bliss. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nmentality is content with little pleasures and wallows in the
\ncreature comforts easily secured in Nature. If it exerts itself it
\ndoes so only superficially, and whatever contacts it makes with the
\nworld, it utilises to satisfy its external senses with sensational
\njoys and pleasures.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
To
\nEnjoy and to Survive<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThese
\nfelt life\u2019s quiver in the outward touch,
They could not feel
\nbehind the touch the soul. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nTo
\nguard their form of self from Nature\u2019s harm
To enjoy and to
\nsurvive was all their care. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThese
\nbeings, the physical human types, feel the throb of life in their
\ncontacts with the world; but they cannot sense or perceive the
\npresence of the spirit, the touch of the soul in these contacts.
\nTheir first concern is to safeguard their bodies\u2014forms of their
\nconcealed selves\u2014from harm from these contacts and next to derive
\nwhatever enjoyment they can from them. To survive and to enjoy is
\ntheir sole preoccupation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Values
\nHung upon the Little Self<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nnarrow horizon of their days was filled
With things and creatures
\nthat could help and hurt:
The world\u2019s values hung upon their
\nlittle self. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nTo
\nthese men every movement, every contact, every happening matters only
\nin so far as it helps or hurts their own petty selves. Everything is
\nmeasured from this narrow and self-centred standpoint. Nothing is
\nconsidered from its intrinsic value-point.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nEach
\nthing has its own significance and, in the right perspective and for
\nthe right living, each must be considered and evaluated in that
\nlight, not from the effect it has on one’s little ego-based
\ninterests. Otherwise values change from person to person and even in
\nthe case of the same person from time to time and, in this way, a
\nwholly false and perverted way of life comes to be which misses the
\ncentral truth of things.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Siege
\nof the Universe<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIsolated,
\ncramped in the vast unknown,
To save their small lives from
\nsurrounding Death
They made a tiny circle of defence
Against
\nthe siege of the huge universe:
They preyed upon the world and
\nwere its prey,
But never dreamed to conquer and be free.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nSetting
\nthemselves against the rest of the universe of which they know
\npractically nothing, these little men seek ways and means to guard
\nthemselves from the environment which takes on for them a threatening
\nhue. In this setting everything seems hostile to their own interests
\nand life, and men feel themselves exposed to a perpetual invasion by
\nan enemy-Nature. For their own living they forage into the camp of
\nthe enemy-world and the latter in turn takes its toll from them.
\nInstead of a mutual give-and-take for common advantage there is an
\nexploitation by force. Men are caught in this vicious circle to the
\nend of their lives; they cannot conceive that it is possible to break
\nout of this vicious circle of hostility and meet the world on a new
\nbasis of harmony.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Scanty
\nGain<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nObeying
\nthe World-Power\u2019s hints and firm taboos
A scanty part they drew
\nfrom her rich store; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nWorld-Nature is inexhaustible in her riches but she is niggardly in
\nyielding her treasures without exacting the price of dedicated effort
\nto win them. These men who will not go beyond their limited needs of
\nphysical well-being do not question Nature’s hegemony, do not venture
\nto plunder her vast estates but are content to live on what little
\nthey can draw without much effort.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nWithout
\nproper exploitation of Nature’s resources, there is no further
\nprogress; things stagnate.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Law
\nof Traditional Behaviour<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas no conscious code and no life-plan:
The patterns of thinking
\nof a little group
Fixed a traditional behaviour\u2019s law.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThese
\nmen have not yet reached the stage of mental development which makes
\nit possible and imperative for them to discover the true laws of life
\nand the ways of applying them. They have not evolved any code of
\nliving based on a conscious perception of an underlying truth or
\ntruths. Those that think, think in a habitual pattern based upon set
\nexperience, and that lays the norm, the law of the society.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
In
\nGrooves of Animal Desire<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIgnorant
\nof soul save as a wraith within,
Tied to a mechanism of
\nunchanging lives
And to a dull usual sense and feeling\u2019s beat,
\n
They turned in grooves of animal desire. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThese
\nmen are not at all conscious of the presence of a soul within their
\nbodies; they have at most a sense of some vague entity. They are not
\nfree to choose or to decide the course of their lives. They feel
\nhelplessly tied to the wheel of birth and death. Their sensations and
\nfeelings run in a dull routine. The master impulse that drives their
\nlife is desire, desire for creature wants, for the satisfaction of
\nthe lower passions of the body and the vital. All movements turn
\naround this desire and its brood.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Banded
\nSelfishness<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nwalls of stone fenced round they worked and warred,
Did by a
\nbanded selfishness a small good
Or wrought a dreadful wrong and
\ncruel pain
On sentient lives and thought they did no ill.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEnclosed
\nin their walls of ego and narrow interests, these beings live their
\nlives working for themselves, fighting with others. Even when they
\nwork in association and seem to effect a pattern of common benefit,
\nit is really for their own selfish purpose, albeit for an extended
\nselfishness. Or they maltreat creatures weaker or lower than
\nthemselves in the scale of life, subject them to pain and even kill
\nthem, but they feel no compunction. They are so self-absorbed that
\nnothing seems wrong to them if only it serves their purpose.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Conquest
\nand Torture<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nArdent
\nfrom the sack of happy peaceful homes
And gorged with slaughter,
\nplunder, rape and fire,
They made of human selves their helpless
\nprey,
A drove of captives led to lifelong woe
Or torture a
\nspectacle made and holiday,
Mocking or thrilled by their torn
\nvictim\u2019s pangs;
Admiring themselves as titans and as gods
\n
Proudly they sang their high and glorious deeds
And praised
\ntheir victory and their splendid force. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThey
\nattack those of their own kind who are living peacefully, conquer
\nthem, exploit them and their resources, make slaves of them. Or they
\nsubject their victims to pain and torture and derive sadistic delight
\nfrom their sufferings. They imagine themselves to be as powerful and
\nirresistible as the titans and the gods and glory in their strength
\nand power.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Instinctive
\nHerd<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\nanimal in the instinctive herd
Pushed by life impulses, forced by
\ncommon needs,
Each in his own kind saw his ego\u2019s glass;
All
\nserved the aim and action of the pack. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEach
\nman of this kind is like every other and together they form a common
\nherd as of animals\u2014with a common bond of desire; they are governed
\nby the automatic instinct of group interest. In serving the group,
\nhowever, each hopes to serve himself. All are driven by the force of
\nlife with the whip of desire and are compelled to act to gain the
\nnecessities that are common to all.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man’s
\nAdjunct Selves<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThose
\nlike himself, by blood or custom kin,
To him were parts of his
\nlife, his adjunct selves,
His personal nebula\u2019s constituent
\nstars,
Satellite companions of his solar I. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nMan
\nin this stage of physical manhood dominated by naked ego may not be
\nhostile to those who are drawn into his life by ties of blood or
\nassociation; he may even make them a part of his life. They are,
\nhowever, secondary, meant to subserve his interests. They are allowed
\nto benefit from him but only as dependents serving his pleasure. Even
\nwhen he gives, it is in return for this acceptance of his lordship.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Man
\nGathers Others<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nmaster of his life\u2019s environment,
A leader of a huddled human
\nmass
Herding for safety on a dangerous earth
He gathered them
\nround him as if minor Powers
To make a common front against the
\nworld,
Or, weak and sole on an indifferent earth,
As a
\nfortress for his undefended heart,
Or else to heal his body\u2019s
\nloneliness. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIn
\npromoting association with others, in gathering under his own
\nprotection men who are disorganised and in search of protective
\nleadership, the man who leads is actuated by the ego-motive of
\nforging a front against a hostile world and conquering its domains.
\nOr, it may be, he feels weak and powerless in the uncaring
\nenvironment and seeks to set up a human wall to guard his little
\nself. Or again, he feels desolate in his lone existence and seeks
\ncompanionship to fill his empty life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
The
\nFoe (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nothers than his kind he sensed a foe,
An alien unlike force to
\nshun and fear,
A stranger and adversary to hate and slay.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIf
\nman associates himself with those who have some affinity with him and
\nbuilds up aggregates to exploit the world for their common benefit,
\nhe looks askance at other aggregates that are not in tune with his
\nown ambitions. He shrinks from them, is afraid of them as of an alien
\nhostile agent and looks upon them as his enemies\u2014potential or
\nactive\u2014and tries to exterminate them.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
The
\nFoe (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOr
\nhe lived as lives the solitary brute;
At war with all he bore his
\nsingle fate. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nOr,
\nhe isolates himself from all. He regards all outside himself as his
\nenemy and lives in perpetual fear, alone, preparing for the onslaught
\nshould it ever come.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nHe
\ndoes not enter the fray by associating himself with a group but keeps
\nto himself, always alert and watchful.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Absorbed
\nin the Present<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAbsorbed
\nin the present act, the fleeting days,
None thought to look
\nbeyond the hour\u2019s gains,
Or dreamed to make this earth a fairer
\nworld,
Or felt some touch divine surprise his heart. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAt
\nthis stage of development, man lives very much on the surface and in
\nthe present. He is caught up in the rapid flow of events in time and
\nis unable to look ahead, beyond the concerns of the moment. Idealism
\nis unknown to his severely practical intelligence. He cannot think in
\nterms of changing the basic conditions of life in this world from
\nthose of ignorance and suffering to those of knowledge and joy. Nor
\nis he sensitive to the deeper movements of the soul within himself.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Fugitive
\nGladness<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe
\ngladness that the fugitive moment gave,
The desire grasped, the
\nbliss, the experience won,
Movement and speed and strength were
\njoy enough
And bodily longings shared and quarrel and play,
And
\ntears and laughter and the need called love. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nSuch
\na man is satisfied with what little life yields to him in his brief
\nexperiences. The fleeting joys of activity, the sense of power and
\nthe satisfaction of the longings of the physical body\u2014that he is
\nable to obtain in association with or in combat against his
\nfellowmen\u2014keep him content. The masqueradings of his selfish
\ndesires as love, the mirth and even the sorrows of such a life add
\nspice and colour to his existence.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Ignorance
\nof the One Self<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nwar and clasp these life-wants joined the All-Life,
Wrestlings of
\na divided unity
Inflicting mutual grief and happiness
In
\nignorance of the Self for ever one. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nis how the several jets of the one Life, separated from each other,
\ncome together again\u2014either in conflict or in association. Their
\npressing wants do not allow them to be by themselves. Each is obliged
\nto have recourse to others, and in the contact experiences pleasure
\nor pain. All the while they are not aware of the fact that they are
\none in their common Self and not really separate, divided entities.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Struggle
\nof Half-Awakened Nescience<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nArming
\nits creatures with delight and hope
A half-awakened Nescience
\nstruggled there
To know by sight and touch the outside of things.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nwhole movement here is actually the struggle of Nescience (basic to
\nMatter) in its state of semi-awakening to grow into a fuller
\nawareness. The living creatures are endowed with the delight of life
\nand, in spite of all the hostility of the environment, with hope for
\nthe affirmation and the enlargement of that delight. Through these
\nimpulsions these creatures are goaded to come into contact with
\nothers and in the process Nescience tries to become aware of the
\nworld though it can be an awareness only of the externals of things.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Instinct
\nand Memory<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nInstinct
\nwas formed; in memory\u2019s crowded sleep
The past lived on as in a
\nbottomless sea:
Inverting into half-thought the quickened sense
\n
She felt around for truth with fumbling hands,
Clutched to
\nher the little she could reach and seize
And put aside in her
\nsubconscient cave. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAs
\na result of this effort towards fuller awareness by the half-awakened
\nNescience, the faculty of spontaneous perception of truth (without
\nhaving to arrive at it by thought) gets formed. All that is
\nexperienced is stored in its impressions in the deep vault of memory.
\nThe faculty of sense develops and some of the sensations even take on
\nthe form of semi-thoughts in their mentalisation. Through them all,
\nthe consciousness emerging from under the veil seeks to grasp the
\ntruth of things, and whatever it is able to lay its hands upon is
\ndeposited in its subconscient layers to be drawn upon when needed.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Growth
\nof the Being<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nSo
\nmust the dim being grow in light and force
And rise to his higher
\ndestiny at last,
Look up to God and round at the universe,
And
\nlearn by failure and progress by fall
And battle with environment
\nand doom,
By suffering discover his deep soul
And by
\npossession grow to his own vasts. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nis thus that the evolving being in Nature grows from his obscure
\nbeginnings in Nescience into the progressive gradations of
\nConsciousness, partaking more and more of its light and force till he
\nis able to perceive and aspire for God, to feel the oneness of life
\nand self in the universe and strike out on a career of conscious
\ndevelopment towards the fulfilment of his destiny. All happenings and
\ncircumstances in life help him in this endeavour. Failures pinpoint
\nhis shortcomings and the need to correct them; falls force him to
\nequip himself more adequately and thus progress; the hostile
\nenvironment forces him to develop and hold his strength in harness;
\nsuffering throws him back from externalities into his deeper recesses
\nand he becomes aware of his soul; desire goads him to expand himself
\nfor self-aggrandisement and conquest, and in the process his
\nconsciousness grows wider and wider embracing, as it does, the
\nenlarging horizons towards which he is pushing.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Half-Way<\/B>
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nHalf-way
\nshe stopped and found her faith no more. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nStill
\nnothing was achieved but to begin,
Yet finished seemed the circle
\nof her force,
Only she had beaten out sparks of ignorance,
Only
\nthe life could think and not the mind,
Only the sense could feel
\nand not the soul,
Only was lit some heat of the flame of Life,
\n
Some joy to be, some rapturous leaps of sense. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAt
\nthis stage, the building and forming Force of the emerging
\nconsciousness under the veil of semiNescience seems to lose its path.
\nIt feels that after all the labour, and at the end of all the
\nexertion, what has been achieved is but little; only a beginning has
\nbeen made. What looks like growings of awareness are really flashes
\nof ignorance; the mind proper is not yet, it is life that has begun
\nto think mechanically, the layer of mind is just forming in life; the
\nfeeling that is awakened is not an action of the soul within, but of
\nthe senses. The little that has been achieved is the speeding up of
\nthe growth and organisation of life and a kind of joy in life, a
\nquickening of enjoyment by the senses is all that has come to be.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Impetus
\nof Half-Conscious Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAll
\nwas an impetus of half-conscious Force,
A spirit sprawling
\ndrowned in dense life-foam,
A vague self grasping at the shape of
\nthings. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhat
\nis going on at this stage of the evolution of life is a general
\nmovement propelled by the Force of a partly-awakened consciousness
\nthat is emerging. The little of the spirit that is delivered out of
\nthe womb of Nescience is covered under the gathering flow of
\npulsating life-streams. An inchoate self tries to fix itself on the
\nforms that have come to be; it is trying to embody itself in those
\nforms.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Wine
\nof God Seeking for Vessels<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nBehind
\nall moved seeking for vessels to hold
A first raw vintage of the
\ngrapes of God,
On earth\u2019s mud a spilth of the supernal Bliss,
\n
Intoxicating the stupefied soul and mind
A heady wine of
\nrapture dark and crude, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nBehind
\nthis appearance of crude and half-done things, however, there is a
\nmovement of deeper import. The Delight of the manifesting Godhead is
\nin search for receptacles to contain it. In the absence of adequate
\nliving vessels to hold it, the Bliss is spilt on the unpurified soil
\nof physical matter. What little is poured and held throws the infant
\nsoul and mind in the body out of balance, intoxicates them. It needs
\na more developed body, mind and soul to contain the Bliss coursing in
\nthis Creation and give it a firm base for action.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Unborn
\nGodhead’s Will<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nDim,
\nuncast yet into spiritual form,
Obscure inhabitant of the world\u2019s
\nblind core,
An unborn godhead\u2019s will, a mute desire. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThere
\nis, motivating all movements, a desire, not yet articulate but dumbly
\nactive for the enjoyment of the bliss of life. This desire is in fact
\na crude form of the Will for manifestation of the still concealed
\ngodhead. That will is at the core of every movement, of every form in
\ncreation. Its first form in life is one of desire, but as the
\nevolution develops it changes into a higher form, the form of
\nspiritual aspiration and impulsion to realise and manifest the Bliss
\nof the divine Truth in Creation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Early
\nMind<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nthird creation now revealed its face. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nA
\nmould of body\u2019s early mind was made. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nA
\nglint of light kindled the obscure World-Force; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAfter
\nthe first order where Life meets Matter and the second where Life
\nenters into a bolder and more articulate phase, Aswapathy now comes
\nto see the third order of life-creation. A first and distinct
\nformation of the mind proper is visible. The great Force, which has
\nbeen active so far mechanically and virtually in the darkness of
\nignorance, is now enlightened by a ray of light from the plane of
\nmind above. Life begins to be informed by mind.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Seeing
\nIdea<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\ndowered a driven world with the seeing Idea
And armed the act
\nwith Thought\u2019s dynamic point:
A small thinking being watched
\nthe works of Time. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nworld is no more driven by a brute and mechanical Force. The Idea
\nwhich sees the truth of the movement and the direction enters the
\nscene. Action gets more purposive and forceful with the infusion of
\nthis Thought-power. All that goes on in the world-movement comes to
\nbe observed by an infant thinking being. A new element of thinking
\nmind has been added.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Intervention
\nfrom Above<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\ndifficult evolution from below
Called a masked intervention from
\nabove;
Else this great, blind inconscient universe
Could
\nnever have disclosed its hidden mind,
Or even in blinkers worked
\nin beast and man
The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nstruggle of the half-awakened Nescience in Matter to emerge into full
\nawareness could never have succeeded but for the help received from
\nthe higher planes of the Mind. A pressure from the Mind-world above
\nacts ceaselessly upon the earth-consciousness and enables the
\nmind-principle hidden in the womb of earth to emerge into the open.
\nIt is again this helping action from above that makes it possible for
\nthe creative Intelligence to guide things from within even before the
\nself-awareness of mind comes to be.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Dim
\nMind-Power<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAt
\nfirst he saw a dim obscure mind-power
Moving concealed by Matter
\nand dumb life. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nA
\ncurrent thin, it streamed in life\u2019s vast flow
Tossing and
\ndrifting under a drifting sky
Amid the surge and glimmering
\ntremulous wash,
Released in splash of sense and feeling\u2019s
\nwaves. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nrelease of the mind-principle into overt action from below is
\ngradual. The power of this emerging mind is at first obscure and
\nvaguely perceptible amidst the densities of Matter and the engulfing
\nturbidities of life. It is like a thin current constantly exposed to
\nthe driving and submerging flow of the waters of life. But it
\nsurvives and slowly formulates itself into fleeting sensations and
\npalpable feelings. Formation into thinking activity comes much later.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Carrying
\nExperience<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthe deep midst of an unconscious world
Its huddled waves and foam
\nof consciousness ran
Pressing and eddying through a narrow
\nstrait,
Carrying experience in its crowded pace. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nslender current of the early mind runs through the mass of
\nunconsciousness covering the material earth, through the surface
\nmovements of agitation thrown up by the upsurge of consciousness and
\nforces its way across the narrow channels open to it. It gathers
\nplentiful experience on its move and assimilates it.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Emerging
\ninto Light<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nflowed emerging into upper light
From the deep pool of its
\nsubliminal birth
To reach some high existence still unknown.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nmind issues from a source that is not patent on the surface; it is
\nborn from the veiled depths of the being and grows into dimensions of
\nhigher light, reaching out to heights that are beyond its present
\nknowing. From obscurity to light, from the known to the unknown is
\nthe ascent of the mind.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
No
\nThinking Self<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas no thinking self, aim there was none:
All was unrecognised
\nstress and seekings vague. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAt
\nthis stage of development, the thinking faculty is not yet evolved.
\nThere is, consequently, no conscious aim before the life-movement
\nwith the first mind at its apex. There is an all-round pressure for
\nadvance, there is a constant seeking for one knows not what.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Passion’s
\nLeaps and Hunger’s Pulls<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOnly
\nto the unstable surface rose
Sensations, stabs and edges of
\ndesire
And passion\u2019s leaps and brief emotion\u2019s cries,
A
\ncasual colloquy of flesh with flesh,
A murmur of heart to longing
\nwordless heart,
Glimmerings of knowledge with no shape of thought
\n
And jets of subconscious will or hunger\u2019s pulls. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhat
\nis evident on the fluidic surface of the movement is a medley of
\nsensations, sharp dartings of desire, intensities of passion and
\nemotions of the hour, inconsequential interchanges between bodies,
\nmuffled longings of heart for heart, faint glowings of perception on
\nthe mental horizons without formative thinking, sudden upsurges of
\nwill from the subconscious layers of the being and the irresistible
\ndemands of hunger from embodied life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Inconscient
\nFlood of Force<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAll
\nwas dim sparkle on a foaming top:
It whirled around a drifting
\nshadow-self
In an inconscient flood of Force in Time. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAll
\nin all it is a whirling movement of a Force with an unstable,
\nunsubstantial self at the centre. The movement is totally
\nunconscious. On the quick-changing surfaces of this flood of life
\nthere is the glimmer of an infant mind.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThe
\nlife-force in flood is not conscious. The being around which it
\nthrows itself in enlarging movement is not yet quite formed, not yet
\nsteady. The mind that is just born sparkles but faintly.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Luminous
\nSingle Point<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThen
\ncame the pressure of a seeing Power
That drew all into a dancing
\nturbid mass
Circling around a single luminous point,
Centre
\nof reference in a conscious field,
Figure of a unitary Light
\nwithin. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nSlowly,
\nunder the pressure of the leading Intelligence, the diverse movements
\nof life are drawn together around one point that has emerged,
\nluminous and central. This bright point, a far projection of the
\nsoul, is a formation representing the one Light of Consciousness at
\nthe core of all these varied movements of life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Illusion
\nof Fixity<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nlit the impulse of the half-sentient flood,
Even an illusion gave
\nof fixity
As if a sea could serve as a firm soil. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nemerging centre of the light-point of Consciousness casts its glow on
\nthe general movement of life which itself is not yet fully sentient.
\nBy its own fixations it gives an appearance of stability to all the
\nmovements in flux which centre around it. But that is only a seeming,
\nfor life is ever on the move, always at flow.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Limit
\nand Shape<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThat
\nstrange observing Power imposed its sight. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIt
\nforced on flux a limit and a shape,
It gave its stream a lower
\nnarrow bank,
Drew lines to snare the spirit\u2019s formlessness.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\ncreative Intelligence proceeds to place the whole life-movement in
\nthe setting of its perspective. The free mobility of the general flux
\nis subjected to control; it is led to flow into meaningful channels;
\na direction and a shape are given. The unbounded flowings of
\nlife-force, imaging the formless nature of the manifesting Spirit,
\nare drawn into purposeful boundaries.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Fashioning
\nof the Mind<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nfashioned the life-mind of bird and beast,
The answer of the
\nreptile and the fish,
The primitive pattern of the thoughts of
\nman. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\ndirecting Intelligence builds up the mind in developing grades in the
\nlife-formation, first in the form of mentalised reactions to impacts
\nand situations in minor forms of life like the reptile and fish, then
\nan encasement in more evolved forms like those of the bird and the
\nbeast, and then, formation in the early crude thinking activity in
\nman. With the thought faculty the mind proper comes into being.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Finite
\nMovement<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nfinite movement of the Infinite
Came winging its way through a
\nwide air of Time;
A march of Knowledge moved in Nescience
And
\nguarded in the form a separate soul. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\naction of bounding in form the boundless flow of life represents a
\nself-limiting movement of the Infinite Spirit in terms of the finite.
\nNot only in the demarcation of life, but in the self-figuration of
\nthe Spirit as the soul in each form, each separate from others, is
\nthe outcome of this finitising movement. Where there was utter
\nNescience there awakes and moves an awareness growing into knowledge,
\na knowledge that relates to and fortifies the sense of separation in
\nthe being. This is a half-knowledge on its way to a fuller knowledge
\nthat will reveal the oneness of all, overriding all division.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Wall
\nAgainst Siege and Death<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIts
\nright to be immortal it reserved,
But built a wall against the
\nsiege of death
And threw a hook to clutch eternity. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nsoul is immortal by its own right but this truth is not made explicit
\nin its embodiment. It is continually exposed, in this world, to the
\nthreat of death and the form it occupies serves as a protective wall
\nagainst this attack. And even in such an uncertain state, the
\nindividual existence in time is maintained in relation with the
\neternal Spirit.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nLittle Ordered World<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nthinking entity appeared in Space. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nA
\nlittle ordered world broke into view
Where being had prison-room
\nfor act and sight,
A floor to walk, a clear but scanty range.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWith
\nthe organisation of the mind in man, the character of the
\nworld-movement undergoes a change. In place of a chaotic flux of life
\nthere emerges an order however limited\u2014and a stability of form.
\nThis very fixity acts as a restraining factor on the freedom of the
\nbeing, but it provides a material base indispensable for action and
\neffective movement in this world.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Restricted
\nIntelligence<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAn
\ninstrument-personality was born,
And a restricted clamped
\nintelligence
Consented to restrain in narrow bounds
Its
\nseeking; it tied the thought to visible things,
Prohibiting the
\nadventure of the Unseen
And the soul\u2019s tread through unknown
\ninfinities. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\ninner soul puts forward a personality as its instrument to gain
\nexperience, to grow in evolution, to manifest. This instrument acts
\nthrough its nature, a complex of body-life-mind. Its mental
\nintelligence, being narrow, is at first very restricted in its range.
\nIt depends and acts on the basis of the physical senses which take
\nnote only of objects that are visible in the material way. The
\npursuit of what is not physically perceptible, but what nevertheless
\nexists, is not within its purview. It does not take cognisance of,
\nmuch less participate in, the soul’s experience of the Infinite
\nExistence behind the veil.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nReflex Reason<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nreflex reason, Nature-habit\u2019s glass
Illumined life to know and
\nfix its field,
Accepting a dangerous ignorant brevity
And the
\ninconclusive purpose of its walk,
And profit by the hour\u2019s
\nprecarious chance
In the allotted boundaries of its fate.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nreasoning faculty, such as it is here, functions more as a medium
\nreflecting the habitual operations of Nature than as a power that
\nthinks and arrives at knowledge on its own. Consequently in its
\neffort to know life, its movement and purpose, it is weighed down and
\ncoloured by the ignorance predominating in this Nature. So it takes
\nlife as a brief ignorant venture that arrives ultimately at nothing
\ndefinitive, a transient affair, determined and governed by fate,
\nhoping to benefit by some chance of the moment.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Little
\nBeing (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nlittle joy and knowledge satisfied
This little being tied into a
\nknot
And hung on a bulge of its environment,
A little curve
\ncut off in measureless Space,
A little span of life in all vast
\nTime. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nEverything
\nabout this being is small. In its division from the rest of the
\nuniverse, it represents a small severed segment of the whole
\nexistence; its life is a stretch of small duration against the
\nendlessness of Time; it does not occupy its environment but attaches
\nitself to its periphery; enclosed in its own small movements of mind,
\nlife and body it is content with what little joy and bits of
\nknowledge life yields to it<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Little
\nBeing (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nthought was there that planned, a will that strove,
But for small
\naims within a narrow scope,
Wasting unmeasured toil on transient
\nthings. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhatever
\nlittle of thought-power and will the being has, they are exercised
\nfor the gaining of small objectives: their range is always small.
\nThere is exertion, indeed, but the energies that are poured out are
\nout of proportion to the fleeting results that are achieved.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Little
\nBeing (III)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nknew itself a creature of the mud;
It asked no larger law, no
\nloftier air;
It had no inward look, no upward gaze. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHaving
\narisen from obscure matter, with a body that is constituted of that
\ndense substance, this being is very much conscious of its
\nmateriality. It lives within the laws of matter as if they were
\nnatural to itself and does not seek to go beyond them. Its vision is
\noutward; it looks only through the doors of the physical senses which
\nare "turned outwards". Its look is always below drawn, as
\nit were, by the downward pull of matter.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nis only as one moves away from the clamps of physical life that one
\nbecomes conscious of the much that is within and above oneself and
\nturns thereto.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Little
\nBeing (IV)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nbackward scholar on logic\u2019s rickety bench
Indoctrinated by the
\nerring sense,
It took appearance for the face of God,
For
\ncasual lights the marching of the suns,
For heaven a starry strip
\nof doubtful blue;
Aspects of being feigned to be the whole.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nlittle being with its little mind struggling with its inadequate
\ninstrument of logic, informed and led by the malgrasping senses,
\ntakes parts or aspects for the whole, appearances for reality. It
\ngrasps inadequately, even wrongly, the diverse phenomena in the
\nuniverse. It sees nothing more in the rising and setting of the daily
\nsun than a phenomenon of physical light. It mistakes the skies of
\nchanging hue and shining stars for some high paradise of the Gods.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Busy
\nInterchange of the Trivial<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwas a voice of busy interchange,
A market-place of trivial
\nthoughts and acts:
A life soon spent, a mind the body\u2019s slave
\n
Here seemed the brilliant crown of Nature\u2019s works, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThere
\nis here quite a bustle of movement, but all activity, physical and
\nmental, is of a small, inconsequential type. Life soon spends itself.
\nAnd the mind that appears as the summit evolute of Nature’s labour is
\nreally the servant of the body; it is always engrossed in the
\nmovements of physical existence, anticipating and helping to fulfil
\nits needs. It has no independent life of its own.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Blind
\nAlley (I)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAnd
\ntiny egos took the world as means
To sate awhile dwarf lusts and
\nbrief desires,
In a death-closed passage saw life\u2019s start and
\nend
As though a blind alley were creation\u2019s sign, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nsmall ego of each one seeks to draw upon and use the world to satisfy
\nits own crude wants and desires of the flesh and vitality, however
\ntemporary these satisfactions may be. Life rises and falls in a fixed
\ncourse, for its passage is always terminated by death. It looks as if
\nthis is a characteristic feature of creation,\u2014as if all movements
\nhave to come to a stop, as if all roads must end in death.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Blind
\nAlley (II)<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAs
\nif for this the soul had coveted birth
In the wonderland of a
\nself-creating world
And the opportunities of cosmic Space.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nIs
\nthis the true character of the world in which the soul has sought to
\ntake birth? Is it only to end its career in a blind alley that it has
\nadventured thus? Is it not rather that the world it has chosen in
\nwhich to embody itself is a land of wonder, a self-propelling and
\nself-enlarging field providing vast opportunities for experience and
\nendless growth?<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Self-Centred
\nCreature<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\ncreature passionate only to survive,
Fettered to puny thoughts
\nwith no wide range
And to the body\u2019s needs and pangs and joys,
\n
This fire growing by its fuel\u2019s death,
Increased by what it
\nseized and made its own:
It gathered and grew and gave itself to
\nnone. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nSuch
\nis the creature of body-life-mind at this stage. Its one aim is
\nsomehow to live, to survive all the attacks and hostilities from the
\nenvironment. Its life-energies are geared to this one aim, its mental
\nenergies are always busy in their small self-regarding rounds; both
\nlife and mind are occupied with the needs and demands of the physical
\nbody. This being grows by what it feeds upon; its life increases by
\nthe death of another. It takes into itself what it can seize from the
\nworld, but of its own it will not give to others.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Limited
\nby its Feeding-Space<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOnly
\nit hoped for greatness in its den
And pleasure and victory in
\nsmall fields of power
And conquest of life-room for self and kin,
\n
An animal limited by its feeding-space. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nambitions of this small creature that is man are correspondingly
\nsmall and local. He seeks for expansion just for himself and for his
\nassociates; his interests and the field of his exertions are limited.
\nHe is more or less like the animal which does not venture outside the
\nrounds of its pasture.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Knows
\nnot the Immortal<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIt
\nknew not the Immortal in its house,
It had no greater deeper
\ncause to live. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nSuch
\na man lives only on the surface of his being and therefore is not
\naware of anything more than his superficial transient self. He does
\nnot know that deep within himself there is a self that is immortal,
\nthe soul. Consequently he thinks and acts only for the life of the
\nsurface person; he does not perceive any other cause to which his
\nlife is to be harnessed, a cause larger than his present narrow
\nexistence or deeper than his external nature-formation.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nHe
\nhas no soul-life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Knowledge
\nBody’s Instrument<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nlimits only it was powerful;
Acute to capture truth for outward
\nuse,
Its knowledge was the body\u2019s instrument; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHe
\nwields powers but only in small areas within the reach of his limited
\nbeing. His mind seizes upon such truths as can be put to use for the
\nbetterment of a life which is turned outward. The knowledge he seeks
\nfor and gains is not for the enlargement of his mental horizon nor
\nfor the development of his consciousness but for serving the needs of
\nhis physical life; it is always related to the concerns of the body.
\nThe body is the master and the mind its slave.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Absorbed
\nin Little Works<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAbsorbed
\nin the little works of its prison-house
It turned around the same
\nunchanging points
In the same circle of interest and desire,
But
\nthought itself the master of its jail. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHis
\nis a petty life always moving in the same grooves mechanically,
\nsatisfying the same desires and pursuing the same objectives of
\ncreature comforts. He is helplessly led to do the rounds again and
\nagain by the habit of physical nature but imagines himself to be the
\nmaster of his life-domain. In truth, however, he is only its slave.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Thought
\nfor Action Made<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nAlthough
\nfor action, not for wisdom made,
Thought was its apex or its
\ngutter\u2019s rim:
It saw an image of the external world
And saw
\nits surface self, but knew no more. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nHis
\nthought-faculty only serves for furthering the self-regarding
\nactivity of his physical life, not for acquiring knowledge or gaining
\nwisdom. All the same, this thought-power represents the highest
\ndevelopment in his evolution; it is the top of his lowly life.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nThis
\nmind sees only the surfaces of things in the world as reflected by
\nthe senses and does not perceive what is behind them.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Mind
\nGrows to Clarity<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nOut
\nof a slow confused embroiled self-search
Mind grew to a clarity
\ncut out, precise,
A gleam enclosed in a stone ignorance.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nOut
\nof these primitive beginnings of helpless serfdom to the physical
\nbody, these confused entanglements in the whorls of life-desire, the
\nmind grows slowly in awareness, awareness of its own self and of what
\nis outside it. Obscure and mixed impressions yield to clearer grasps,
\nvagueness to precision. It becomes a ray of search-light in a
\npervading mass of dense ignorance.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Monotonous
\nPlay<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nIn
\nthis bound thinking\u2019s narrow leadership
Tied to the soil,
\ninspired by common things,
Attached to a confined familiar world,
\n
Amid the multitude of her motived plots,
Her changing actors
\nand her million masks,
Life was a play monotonously the same.
\n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThus
\ndoes life enact here a monotonous play. She is led by a small earthy
\nmind that thinks in narrow grooves. Her field is limited and though
\nher designed themes may be many and varying, the whole movement is
\nrepetitive and tiring.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
No
\nWide Release<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThere
\nwere no vast perspectives of the spirit,
No swift invasions of
\nunknown delight,
No golden distances of wide release. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\nlife-movement is confined within its narrow boundaries. The vaster
\nhorizons proper to the Spirit are not yet. Her familiar pleasures and
\njoys run in the same common rounds. Sudden and new intensities of
\ndelight are not for her, neither a happy release into movements of
\nlarger and brighter ranges.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Fixed
\nPetty State<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThis
\npetty state resembled our human days
But fixed to eternity of
\nchangeless type,
A moment\u2019s movement doomed to last through
\nTime. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nThis
\norder of life with its bounded smallness on every side, seen by
\nAswapathy on its own plane, is like a state of human life functioning
\nunder severe limitations. But human life is capable of change, of
\ntransforming progress and enlargement; not so the life-movement in
\nthe life-world. This world is set to a fixed type; the same action
\ngoes on for all time. Change is possible only on earth which is the
\nappointed field for evolution.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nWorlds
\non planes other than that of Earth are typal worlds\u2014unchanging,
\nfixed in their formula of existence.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
Half-Illumined
\nBuilding<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nExistence
\nbridge-like spanned the inconscient gulfs,
A half-illumined
\nbuilding in a mist
Which from a void of Form arose to sight
And
\njutted out into a void of Soul. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nWhat
\nAswapathy sees is an existence spreading over the deep gulfs of
\ninconscience, dimly visible formation arising out of a state of
\nformlessness, extending from the lower void of Nescience to the upper
\nvoid of the Spirit.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\nAt
\nboth the ends of the formed existence is the Void\u2014the dark one
\nbelow and the bright one above.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
\n


\n
A
\nLittle Light<\/B> <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nA
\nlittle light in a great darkness born,
Life knew not where it
\nwent nor whence it came. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nAround
\nall floated still the nescient haze. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n


\nLife
\nhere, on this plane, is a slender flame of light that is born and
\nholds itself in a mass of darkness, death and nescience. She is not
\nconscious, not aware of her origin or the direction of her course.
\nThere is still the obscuring mist of nescience all around. <\/FONT><\/FONT>
\n<\/P>
\n



\n<\/P>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction   Notes   Book 1   Book II   Book III   Book IV    Book V   Book VI   Book VII   Book VIII    Book IX   Book X   Book XI   Book XII Book Two. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-2-savitri-study","wpcat-250-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10668"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11086,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668\/revisions\/11086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}