{"id":1250,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1250"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","slug":"04-the-integral-knowledge-and-the-aim-of-life-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/19-the-life-divine-volume-19\/04-the-integral-knowledge-and-the-aim-of-life-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","title":{"rendered":"-04_The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

C<\/font>HAPTER<\/font>
\nXVI<\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font>The
\nIntegral Knowledge and the Aim of Life;<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFour Theories of Existence<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n W<\/font>hen all the desires that cling to the heart are loosed
\naway from<\/span><\/p>\n

\n it, then the mortal becomes immortal, even here
\nhe possesses the<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Eternal. <\/span><\/p>\n


\nBrihadaranyaka<\/span><\/i><\/span> Upanishad<\/span><\/i>.1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/span><\/p>\n

He becomes the Eternal and departs into the Eternal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Brihadaranyaka<\/span><\/span> Upanishad.2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 This bodiless and immortal Life and Light
\nis the Brahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Brihadaranyaka<\/span><\/span> Upanishad.3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/span><\/p>\n

Long and narrow is the ancient Path,\u2014I <\/span><\/p>\n

\nhave touched it, I have found it,\u2014the Path by which the
\nwise, knowers<\/span>
\nof the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nEternal, attaining to salvation, depart hence to the
\nhigh world of <\/span><\/p>\n

\nParadise. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Brihadaranyaka<\/span><\/span> Upanishad.4<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/span><\/p>\n

I am a son of Earth, the soil is my mother…. May she
\nlavish on <\/span><\/p>\n

\nme her manifold treasure, her secret riches…. May we
\nspeak the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nbeauty of thee, O Earth, that is in thy villages and
\nforests and<\/span><\/p>\n

\n assemblies and war and battles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Atharva<\/span><\/span> Veda.5<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 May Earth, sovereign over the past and the
\nfuture, make for us a<\/span><\/p>\n

\n wide world… Earth that was the water on the
\nOcean and whose <\/span><\/p>\n

\ncourse the thinkers follow by the magic of their
\nknowledge, she<\/span><\/p>\n

\n who has her heart of immortality covered up by
\nthe Truth in the<\/span><\/p>\n

\n supreme ether, may she establish for us light and
\npower in that<\/span><\/p>\n

\n most high kingdom. <\/span><\/p>\n

Atharva<\/span><\/span> Veda.6<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

  O Flame, thou
\nfoundest<\/span> the mortal in a supreme immortality<\/span><\/p>\n

\n for increase of inspired Knowledge day by day;
\nfor the seer<\/span><\/p>\n

\n who has thirst for the dual birth, thou
\ncreatest<\/span>
\ndivine bliss and <\/span><\/p>\n

\nhuman joy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rig Veda.7<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 O Godhead, guard for us the Infinite and
\nlavish the finite.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rig Veda.8<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n      
\nB<\/font><\/b>ut before we examine the principles and process of the evolutionary
\nascent of Consciousness, it is necessary to restate what our theory of integral
\nknowledge affirms as fundamental<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n                   
\n1<\/span><\/sup> IV. 4. 7.       <\/span>
\n2<\/sup> IV. 4. 6.      <\/span>
\n3 <\/sup>IV. 4. 7.      <\/span>
\n4<\/sup> IV. 4. 8. <\/span> 5<\/sup> XII. 1. 12,
\n44, 56.    <\/span> 6<\/sup> XII. 1. 1, 8.   <\/span> 7<\/sup> I. 31. 7.    <\/span> 8 <\/sup>IV. 2. 11.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 657<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

truths
\nof the Reality and its manifestation and what it admits as effectual sides and
\ndynamic aspects but is unable to accept as sufficient for a total explanation of
\nexistence and the universe. For truth of knowledge must base truth of life and
\ndetermine the aim of life; the evolutionary process itself is the development of
\na Truth of existence concealed here in an original
\nInconscience<\/span> and brought out from it by an emerging Consciousness which
\nrises from gradation to gradation of its self-unfolding until it can manifest in
\nitself the integral reality of things and a total self-knowledge. On the nature
\nof that Truth from which it starts and which it has to manifest must depend the
\ncourse of the evolutionary development,\u2014the steps of its process and their
\nsignificance.<\/p>\n

\nFirst, we affirm an Absolute as the origin and support and secret Reality of all
\nthings. The Absolute Reality is indefinable and ineffable by mental thought and
\nmental language; it is self-existent and self-evident to itself, as all
\nabsolutes are self-evident, but our mental affirmatives and negatives, whether
\ntaken separatively<\/span> or together, cannot limit or define it. But at
\nthe same time there is a spiritual consciousness, a spiritual knowledge, a
\nknowledge by identity which can seize the Reality in its fundamental aspects and
\nits manifested powers and figures. All that is comes within this description
\nand, if seen by this knowledge in its own truth or its occult meaning, can be
\nregarded as an expression of the Reality and itself a reality. This manifested
\nreality is self-existent in these fundamental aspects; for all the basic
\nrealities are a bringing out of something that is eternal and inherently true in
\nthe Absolute; but all that is not fundamental, all that is temporary is
\nphenomenal, is form and power dependent on the reality it expresses and is real
\nby that and by its own truth of significance, the truth of what it carries in
\nit, because it is that and not something fortuitous, not baseless, illusory, a
\nvain constructed figure. Even what deforms and disguises, as falsehood deforms
\nand disguises truth, evil deforms and disguises good, has a temporal reality as
\ntrue consequences of the Inconscience<\/span>; but these
\ncontrary figures, though real in their own field, are not essential but only
\ncontributory to the manifestation and serve it as a temporal form or power of
\nits movement. The universal then is real by <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 658<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

virtue
\nof the Absolute of which it is a self-manifestation, and all that it contains is
\nreal by virtue of the universal to which it gives a form and figure. <\/p>\n

\nThe Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is
\nthe fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic
\npower and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly
\npersistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.
\nAll theories that make the Becoming sufficient to itself are therefore
\nhalf-truths, valid for some knowledge of the manifestation acquired by an
\nexclusive concentration upon what they affirm and envisage, but otherwise valid
\nonly because the Being is not separate from the Becoming but present in it,
\nconstituted of it, inherent in its every infinitesimal atom and in its boundless
\nexpansion and extension. Becoming can only know itself wholly when it knows
\nitself as Being; the soul in the Becoming arrives at self-knowledge and
\nimmortality when it knows the Supreme and Absolute and possesses the nature of
\nthe Infinite and Eternal. To do that is the supreme aim of our existence; for
\nthat is the truth of our being and must therefore be the inherent aim, the
\nnecessary outcome of our becoming: this truth of our being becomes in the soul a
\nnecessity of manifestation, in matter a secret energy, in life an urge and
\ntendency, a desire and a seeking, in mind a will, aim,
\nendeavour<\/span>, purpose; to manifest what is from the first occult within it
\nis the whole hidden trend of evolutionary Nature. <\/p>\n

\nTherefore we accept the truth on which the philosophies of the
\nsupracosmic<\/span>
\nAbsolute take their stand; Illusionism itself, even if we contest its ultimate
\nconclusions, can still be accepted as the way in which the soul in mind, the
\nmental being, has to see things in a spiritual-pragmatic experience when it cuts
\nitself off from the Becoming in order to approach and enter into the Absolute.
\nBut also, since the Becoming is real and is inevitable in the very self-power of
\nthe Infinite and Eternal, this too is not a complete philosophy of existence. It
\nis possible for the soul in the Becoming to know itself as the Being and possess
\nthe Becoming, to know itself as the Infinite in essence but also as the Infinite
\nself-expressed in the finite, the timeless Eternal regarding <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 659<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

itself
\nand its works in the founding status and the developing motion of Time-eternity.
\nThis realisation<\/span> is the culmination of the Becoming; it is the fulfilment<\/span> of the Being in its dynamic reality. This too
\nthen must be part of the total truth of things, for it alone gives a full
\nspiritual significance to the universe and justifies the soul in manifestation;
\nan explanation of things that deprives cosmic and individual existence of all
\nsignificance cannot be the whole explanation or the solution it proposes the
\nsole true issue.<\/p>\n

\nThe next affirmation which we put forward is that the fundamental reality of the
\nAbsolute is to our spiritual perception a Divine Existence, Consciousness and
\nDelight of Being which is a supracosmic<\/span> Reality,
\nself-existent, but also the secret truth underlying the whole manifestation; for
\nthe fundamental truth of Being must necessarily be the fundamental truth of
\nBecoming. All is a manifestation of That; for it dwells even in all that seem to
\nbe its opposites and its hidden compulsion on them to disclose it is the cause
\nof evolution, on Inconscience<\/span> to develop from itself
\nits secret consciousness, on the apparent Non-Being to reveal in itself the
\noccult spiritual existence, on the insensible neutrality of Matter to develop a
\nvarious delight of being which must grow, setting itself free from its minor
\nterms, its contrary dualities of pain and pleasure, into the essential delight
\nof existence, the spiritual Ananda.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Being is one, but this oneness is infinite and contains in itself an
\ninfinite plurality or multiplicity of itself: the One is the All; it is not only
\nan essential Existence, but an All-Existence. The infinite multiplicity of the
\nOne and the eternal unity of the Many are the two realities or aspects of one
\nreality on which the manifestation is founded. By reason of this fundamental
\nverity of the manifestation the Being presents itself to our cosmic experience
\nin three poises,\u2014the supracosmic<\/span> Existence, the cosmic
\nSpirit and the individual Self in the Many. But the multiplicity permits of a
\nphenomenal division of consciousness, an effectual Ignorance in which the Many,
\nthe individuals, cease to become aware of the eternal self-existent Oneness and
\nare oblivious of the oneness of the cosmic Self in which and by which they live,
\nmove and have their being. But, by force of the secret Unity, the<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 660<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

soul
\nin becoming is urged by its own unseen reality and by the occult pressure of
\nevolutionary Nature to come out of this state of Ignorance and recover
\neventually the knowledge of the one Divine Being and its oneness with it and at
\nthe same time to recover its spiritual unity with all individual beings and the
\nwhole universe. It has to become aware not only of itself in the universe but of
\nthe universe in itself and of the Being of cosmos as its greater self; the
\nindividual has to universalise<\/span> himself and in the same movement to become
\naware of his supracosmic<\/span> transcendence. This triple
\naspect of the reality must be included in the total truth of the soul and of the
\ncosmic manifestation, and this necessity must determine the ultimate trend of
\nthe process of evolutionary Nature. <\/p>\n

\nAll views of existence that stop short of the Transcendence and ignore it must
\nbe incomplete accounts of the truth of being. The pantheistic view of the
\nidentity of the Divine and the Universe is a truth, for all this that is
\nis<\/span>
\nthe Brahman: but it stops short of the whole truth when it misses and omits the
\nsupracosmic<\/span> Reality. On the other side, every view
\nthat affirms the cosmos only and dismisses the individual as a by-product of the
\ncosmic Energy, errs by laying too much emphasis on one apparent factual aspect
\nof the world-action; it is true only of the natural individual and is not even
\nthe whole truth of that: for<\/p>\n

the
\nnatural individual, the nature-being, is indeed a product of the universal
\nEnergy, but is at the same time a nature-personality of the soul, an expressive
\nformation of the inner being and person, and this soul is not a perishable cell
\nor a dissoluble portion of the cosmic Spirit, but has its original immortal
\nreality in the Transcendence. It is a fact that the cosmic Being expresses
\nitself through the individual being, but also it is a truth that the
\nTranscendental Reality expresses itself through both the individual existence
\nand the Cosmos; the soul is an eternal portion of the Supreme and not a fraction
\nof Nature. But equally any view that sees the universe as existent only in the
\nindividual consciousness must very evidently be a fragmentary truth: it is
\njustified by a perception of the universality of the spiritual individual and
\nhis power of embracing the whole universe in his consciousness; but neither the
\ncosmos nor the individual consciousness is the <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 661<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nfundamental truth of existence; for both depend upon and exist by the
\ntranscendental Divine Being. <\/p>\n

\nThis Divine Being, Sachchidananda<\/span>, is at once
\nimpersonal and personal: it is an Existence and the origin and foundation of all
\ntruths, forces, powers, existences, but it is also the one transcendent
\nConscious Being and the All-Person of whom all conscious beings are the selves
\nand personalities; for He is their highest Self and the universal indwelling
\nPresence. It is a necessity for the soul in the universe,\u2014and therefore the
\ninner trend of the evolutionary Energy and its ultimate intention,\u2014to know and
\nto grow into this truth of itself, to become one with the Divine Being, to raise
\nits nature to the Divine Nature, its existence into the Divine Existence, its
\nconsciousness into the Divine Consciousness, its delight of being into the
\ndivine Delight of Being, and to receive all this into its becoming, to make the
\nbecoming an expression of that highest Truth, to be possessed inwardly of the
\nDivine Self and Master of its existence and to be at the same time wholly
\npossessed by Him and moved by His Divine Energy and live and act in a complete
\nself-giving and surrender. On this side the dualistic and theistic views of
\nexistence which affirm the eternal real existence of God and the Soul and the
\neternal real existence and cosmic action of the Divine Energy, express also a
\ntruth of the integral existence; but their formulation falls short of the whole
\ntruth if it denies the essential unity of God and Soul or their capacity for
\nutter oneness or ignores what underlies the supreme experience of the merger of
\nthe soul in the Divine Unity through love, through union of consciousness,
\nthrough fusion of existence in existence.<\/p>\n

\nThe manifestation of the Being in our universe takes the shape of an involution
\nwhich is the starting-point of an evolution,\u2014 Matter the nethermost stage,
\nSpirit the summit. In the descent into involution there can be distinguished
\nseven principles of manifested being, seven gradations of the manifesting
\nConsciousness of which we can get a perception or a concrete realisation<\/span> of their presence and immanence here or a
\nreflected experience. The first three are the original and fundamental
\nprinciples and they form universal states of consciousness to which we can rise;
\nwhen we do so, we can become aware of<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 662<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nsupreme planes or levels of fundamental manifestation or self-formulation of the
\nspiritual reality in which is put in front the unity of the Divine Existence,
\nthe power of the Divine Consciousness, the bliss of the Divine Delight of
\nexistence,\u2014not concealed or disguised as here, for we can possess them in their
\nfull independent reality. A fourth principle of supramental<\/span>
\nTruth-Consciousness is associated with them; manifesting unity in infinite
\nmultiplicity, it is the characteristic power of self-determination of the
\nInfinite. This quadruple power of the supreme existence, consciousness and
\ndelight constitutes an upper hemisphere of manifestation based on the Spirit’s
\neternal self-knowledge. If we enter into these principles or into any plane of
\nbeing in which there is the pure presence of the Reality, we find in them a
\ncomplete freedom and knowledge. The other three powers and planes of being, of
\nwhich we are even at present aware, form a lower hemisphere of the
\nmanifestation, a hemisphere of Mind, Life and Matter. These are in themselves
\npowers of the superior principles; but wherever they manifest in a separation
\nfrom their spiritual sources, they undergo as a result a phenomenal lapse into a
\ndivided in place of the true undivided existence: this lapse, this separation
\ncreates a state of limited knowledge exclusively concentrated on its own limited
\nworld-order and oblivious of all that is behind it and of the underlying unity,
\na state therefore of cosmic and individual Ignorance.<\/p>\n

\nIn the descent into the material plane of which our natural life is a product,
\nthe lapse culminates in a total Inconscience<\/span> out of
\nwhich an involved Being and Consciousness have to emerge by a gradual evolution.
\nThis inevitable evolution first develops, as it is bound to develop, Matter and
\na material universe; in Matter, Life appears and living physical beings; in
\nLife, Mind manifests and embodied thinking and living beings; in Mind, ever
\nincreasing its powers and activities in forms of Matter, the Supermind<\/span> or Truth-Consciousness must appear, inevitably, by
\nthe very force of what is contained in the Inconscience<\/span>
\nand the necessity in Nature to bring it into manifestation.
\nSupermind<\/span>
\nappearing manifests the Spirit’s self-knowledge and whole-knowledge in a supramental<\/span> living being
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 663<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

and
\nmust bring about by the same law, by an inherent necessity and inevitability,
\nthe dynamic manifestation here of the divine Existence, Consciousness and
\nDelight of existence. It is this that is the significance of the plan and order
\nof the terrestrial evolution; it is this necessity that must determine all its
\nsteps and degrees, its principle and its process. Mind, Life and Matter are the
\nrealised<\/span>
\npowers of the evolution and well-known to us; Supermind<\/span>
\nand the triune aspects of Sachchidananda<\/span> are the
\nsecret principles which are not yet put in front and have still to be realised<\/span> in the forms of the manifestation, and we know them
\nonly by hints and a partial and fragmentary action still not disengaged from the
\nlower movement and therefore not easily recognisable<\/span>.
\nBut their evolution too is part of the destiny of the soul in the
\nBecoming,\u2014there must be a realisation<\/span> and
\ndynamisation<\/span>
\nin earth-life and in Matter not only of Mind but of all that is above it, all
\nthat has descended indeed but is still concealed in earth-life and Matter. <\/p>\n

\nOur theory of the integral knowledge admits Mind as a creative principle, a
\npower of the Being, and assigns it its place in the manifestation; it similarly
\naccepts Life and Matter as powers of the Spirit and in them also is a creative
\nEnergy. But the view of things that makes Mind the sole or the supreme creative
\nprinciple and the philosophies that assign to Life or Matter the same sole
\nreality or predominance, are expressions of a half-truth and not the integral
\nknowledge. It is true that when Matter first emerges it becomes the dominant
\nprinciple; it seems to be and is within its own field the basis of all things,
\nthe constituent of all things, the end of all things: but Matter itself is found
\nto be a result of something that is not Matter, of Energy, and this Energy
\ncannot be something self-existent and acting in the Void, but can turn out and,
\nwhen deeply scrutinised<\/span>, seems likely to turn out to
\nbe the action of a secret Consciousness and Being: when the spiritual knowledge
\nand experience emerge, this becomes a certitude,\u2014it is seen that the creative
\nEnergy in Matter is a movement of the power of the Spirit. Matter itself cannot
\nbe the original and ultimate reality. At the same time the view that divorces
\nMatter and Spirit and puts them as opposites is unacceptable; Matter is a form
\nof Spirit, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 664<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

a
\nhabitation of Spirit, and here in Matter itself there can be a
\nrealisation<\/span> of Spirit. <\/p>\n

\nIt is true again that Life when it emerges becomes dominant, turns Matter into
\nan instrument for its manifestation, and begins to look as if it were itself the
\nsecret original principle which breaks out into creation and veils itself in the
\nforms of Matter; there is a truth in this appearance and this truth must be
\nadmitted as a part of the integral knowledge. Life, though not the original
\nReality, is yet a form, a power of it which is missioned<\/span>
\nhere as a creative urge in Matter. Life, therefore, has to be accepted as the
\nmeans of our activity and the dynamic mould into which we have here to pour the
\nDivine Existence; but it can so be accepted only because it is a form of a
\nDivine Energy which is itself greater than the Life-force. The Life-principle is
\nnot the whole foundation and origin of things; its creative working cannot be
\nperfected and sovereignly<\/span> fulfilled or even find its
\ntrue movement until it knows itself as an energy of the Divine Being and
\nelevates and subtilises<\/span> its action into a free channel
\nfor the outpourings of the superior Nature. <\/p>\n

\nMind in its turn, when it emerges, becomes dominant; it uses Life and Matter as
\nmeans of its expression, a field for its own growth and sovereignty, and it
\nbegins to work as if it were the true reality and the creator even as it is the
\nwitness of existence. But Mind also is a limited and derivative power; it is an
\noutcome of Overmind<\/span> or it is here a luminous shadow
\nthrown by the divine Supermind<\/span>: it can only arrive at
\nits own perfection by admitting the light of a larger knowledge; it must
\ntransform its own more ignorant, imperfect and conflicting powers and values
\ninto the divinely effective potencies and harmonious values of the
\nsupramental<\/span>
\nTruth-Consciousness. All the powers of the lower hemisphere with their
\nstructures of the Ignorance can find their true selves only by a transformation
\nin the light that descends to us from the higher hemisphere of an eternal self-knowledge.All<\/span> these three lower powers of being build upon
\nthe Inconscient<\/span> and seem to be originated and
\nsupported by it: the black dragon of the Inconscience<\/span>
\nsustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the
\nmaterial<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 665<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nuniverse; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem
\nto be the starting-point of consciousness itself and the source of all
\nlife-impulse. The Inconscient<\/span>, in consequence of this origination and
\npredominance, is taken now by a certain line of enquiry as the real origin and
\ncreator. It has indeed to be accepted that an inconscient<\/span>
\nforce, an inconscient<\/span> substance are the starting-point
\nof the evolution, but it is a conscious Spirit and not an inconscient<\/span> Being that is emerging in the evolution. The Inconscient<\/span> and its primary works are penetrated by a
\nsuccession of higher and higher powers of being and are made subject to
\nConsciousness so that its obstructions to the evolution, its circles of
\nrestriction, are slowly broken, the Python coils of its obscurity shot through
\nby the arrows of the Sun-God; so are the limitations of our material substance
\ndiminished until they can be transcended and mind, life and body can be
\ntransformed through a possession of them by the greater law of divine
\nConsciousness, Energy and Spirit. The integral knowledge admits the valid truths
\nof all views of existence, valid in their own field, but it seeks to get rid of
\ntheir limitations and negations and to harmonise<\/span> and
\nreconcile these partial truths in a larger truth which fulfils all the many
\nsides of our being in the one omnipresent Existence.
\n <\/p>\n

\nAt this point we must take a step farther and begin to regard the metaphysical
\ntruth we have so stated as a determinant not only of our thought and inner
\nmovements but of our life-direction, a guide to a dynamic solution of our
\nself-experience and world-experience. Our metaphysical knowledge, our view of
\nthe fundamental truth of the universe and the meaning of existence, should
\nnaturally be the determinant of our whole conception of life and attitude to it;
\nthe aim of life, as we conceive it, must be structured on that basis.
\nMetaphysical philosophy is an attempt to fix the fundamental realities and
\nprinciples of being as distinct from its processes and the phenomena which
\nresult from those processes. But it is on the fundamental realities that the
\nprocesses depend: our own process of life, its aim and method, should be in
\naccordance with the truth of being that we see; otherwise our metaphysical truth
\ncan be only a play of the intellect without any dynamic importance. It is true
\nthat the intellect must seek <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 666<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

after
\ntruth for its own sake without any illegitimate interference of a preconceived
\nidea of life-utility. But still the truth, once discovered, must be
\nrealisable<\/span> in our inner being and our outer activities: if it is not, it
\nmay have an intellectual but not an integral importance; a truth for the
\nintellect, for our life it would be no more than the solution of a
\nthought-puzzle or an abstract unreality or a dead letter. Truth of being must
\ngovern truth of life; it cannot be that the two have no relation or
\ninterdependence. The highest significance of life to us, the fundamental truth
\nof existence, must be also the accepted meaning of our own living, our aim, our
\nideal. <\/p>\n

\nThere are, roughly, from this viewpoint, four main theories, or categories of
\ntheory, with their corresponding mental attitudes and ideals in accordance with
\nfour different conceptions of truth of existence. These we may call the supracosmic<\/span>, the cosmic and terrestrial, the supraterrestrial<\/span> or other-worldly, and the integral or
\nsynthetic or composite, the theories that try to reconcile the three factors,\u2014or
\nany two of them,\u2014which the other views tend to isolate. In this last category
\nwould fall our view of our existence here as a Becoming with the Divine Being
\nfor its origin and its object, a progressive manifestation, a spiritual
\nevolution with the supracosmic<\/span> for its source and
\nsupport, the other-worldly for a condition and connecting link and the cosmic
\nand terrestrial for its field, and with human mind and life for its nodus<\/span> and turning-point of release towards a higher and a
\nhighest perfection. Our regard then must be on the three first to see where they
\ndepart from the integralising<\/span> view of life and how far
\nthe truths they stand on fit into its structure. <\/p>\n

\nIn the supracosmic<\/span> view of things the supreme Reality is alone
\nentirely real. A certain illusoriness, a sense of the vanity of cosmic existence
\nand individual being is a characteristic turn of this seeing of things, but it
\nis not essential, not an indispensable adjunct to its main thought-principle. In
\nthe extreme forms of its world-vision human existence has no real meaning; it is
\na mistake of the soul or a delirium of the will to live, an error or ignorance
\nwhich somehow overcasts the absolute Reality. The only true truth is the
\nsupracosmic<\/span>; or, in any case, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 667<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the
\nAbsolute, the Parabrahman<\/span> is the origin and goal of all existence, all
\nelse is an interlude without any abiding significance. If so, it would follow
\nthat the one thing to be done, the one wise and needful way of our being is to
\nget away from all living, whether terrestrial or celestial, as soon as our inner
\nevolution or some hidden law of the spirit makes that possible. True, the
\nillusion is real to itself, the vanity pretends to be full of purpose; its laws
\nand facts,\u2014they are only facts and not truths, empirical and not real
\nrealities,\u2014are binding on us so long as we rest in the error. But from any
\nstandpoint of real knowledge, in any view of the true truth of things, all this
\nself-delusion would seem to be little better than the laws of a cosmic madhouse;
\nso long as we are mad and have to remain in the madhouse, we are perforce
\nsubject to its rules and we must make, according to our temperament, the best or
\nthe worst of them, but always our proper aim is to get cured of our insanity and
\ndepart into light and truth and freedom. Whatever mitigations may be made in the
\nseverity of this logic, whatever concessions validating life and personality for
\nthe time being, yet from this viewpoint the true law of living must be whatever
\nrule can help us soonest to get back to self-knowledge and lead by the most
\ndirect road to Nirvana; the true ideal must be an extinction of the individual
\nand the universal, a self-annulment in the Absolute. This ideal of
\nself-extinction which is boldly and clearly proclaimed by the Buddhists, is in
\nVedantic<\/span> thought a self-finding: but the self-finding of the individual
\nby his growth into his true being in the Absolute would only be possible if both
\nare interrelated realities; it could not apply to the final world-abolishing
\nself-affirmation of the Absolute in an unreal or temporary individual by the
\nannulment of the false personal being and by the destruction of all individual
\nand cosmic existence for that individual consciousness,\u2014however much these
\nerrors may go on, helplessly inevitable, in the world of Ignorance permitted by
\nthe Absolute, in a universal, eternal and indestructible
\nAvidya.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut this idea of the total vanity of life is not altogether an inevitable
\nconsequence of the supracosmic<\/span> theory of existence. In the Vedanta of the
\nUpanishads, the Becoming of Brahman <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 668<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

is
\naccepted as a reality; there is room therefore for a truth of the Becoming:
\nthere is in that truth a right law of life, a permissible satisfaction of the
\nhedonistic element in our being, its delight of temporal existence, an effective
\nutilisation<\/span>
\nof its practical energy, of the executive force of consciousness in it; but, the
\ntruth and law of its temporal becoming once fulfilled, the soul has to turn back
\nto its final self-realisation<\/span>, for its natural highest
\nfulfilment<\/span> is a release, a liberation into its original being, its
\neternal self, its timeless reality. There is a circle of becoming starting from
\neternal Being and ending in it; or, from the point of view of the Supreme as a
\npersonal or superpersonal<\/span>
\nReality, there is a temporary play, a game of becoming and living in the
\nuniverse. Here, evidently, there is no other significance of life than the will
\nof the Being to become, the will of consciousness and the urge of its force
\ntowards becoming, its delight of becoming; for the individual, when that is
\nwithdrawn from him or fulfilled in him and no longer active, the becoming
\nceases: but otherwise the universe persists or always comes back into
\nmanifestation, because the will to become is eternal and must be so since it is
\nthe inherent will of an eternal Existence. It may be said that one defect in
\nthis view of things is the absence of any fundamental reality of the individual,
\nof any abiding value and significance of his natural or his spiritual activity:
\nbut it can be replied that this demand for a permanent personal significance,
\nfor a personal eternity, is an error of our ignorant surface consciousness; the
\nindividual is a temporary becoming of the Being, and that is a quite sufficient
\nvalue and significance. It may be added that in a pure or an absolute Existence
\nthere can be no values and significances: in the universe values exist and are
\nindispensable, but only as relative and temporary buildings; there can be no
\nabsolute values, no eternal and self-existent significances in a Time-structure.
\nThis sounds conclusive enough and it seems that nothing more can be said about
\nthe matter. And yet the question remains over; for the stress on our individual
\nbeing, the demand on it, the value put on individual perfection and salvation is
\ntoo great to be dismissed as a device for a minor operation, the coiling and
\nuncoiling of an insignificant spiral amid the vast circlings<\/span>
\nof the Eternal’s<\/span>
\nbecoming in the universe. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 669<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nThe cosmic-terrestrial view which we may take next as the exact opposite of the supracosmic<\/span>, considers cosmic existence as real; it goes
\nfarther and accepts it as the only reality, and its view is confined,
\nordinarily, to life in the material universe. God, if God exists, is an eternal
\nBecoming; or if God does not exist, then Nature,\u2014whatever view we may take of
\nNature, whether we regard it as a play of Force with Matter or a great cosmic
\nLife or even admit a universal impersonal Mind in Life and Matter,\u2014is a
\nperennial becoming. Earth is the field or it is one of the temporary fields, man
\nis the highest possible form or only one of the temporary forms of the Becoming.
\nMan individually may be altogether mortal; mankind also may survive only for a
\ncertain short period of the earth’s existence; earth itself may bear life only
\nfor a rather longer period of its duration in the solar system; that system may
\nitself one day come to an end or at least cease to be an active or productive
\nfactor in the Becoming; the universe we live in may itself dissolve or contract
\nagain into the seed-state of its Energy: but the principle of Becoming is
\neternal,\u2014or at least as eternal as anything can be in the obscure ambiguity of
\nexistence. It is indeed possible to suppose a persistence of man the individual
\nas a psychic entity in Time, a continuous terrestrial or cosmic
\nensouling<\/span>
\nor reincarnation without any after-life or other-life elsewhere: in that case
\none may either suppose an ideal of constantly increasing perfection or approach
\nto perfection or a growth towards an enduring felicity somewhere in the universe
\nas the aim of this endless Becoming. But in an extreme terrestrial view this is
\nwith difficulty tenable. Certain speculations of human thought have tended in
\nthis direction, but they have not taken a substantial body. A perpetual
\npersistence in the Becoming is usually associated with the acceptance of a
\ngreater supraterrestrial<\/span> existence. <\/p>\n

\nIn the ordinary view of a sole terrestrial life or a restricted transient
\npassage in the material universe,\u2014for possibly there may be thinking living
\nbeings in other planets,\u2014an acceptance of man’s mortality and a passive
\nendurance of it or an active dealing with a limited personal or collective life
\nand life-aims are the only choice possible. The one high and reasonable course
\nfor the individual human being,\u2014unless indeed he is satisfied <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 670<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

with
\npursuing his personal purposes or somehow living his life until it passes out of
\nhim,\u2014is to study the laws of the Becoming and take the best advantage of them to
\nrealise<\/span>, rationally or intuitionally, inwardly or in the dynamism of
\nlife, its potentialities in himself or for himself or in or for the race of
\nwhich he is a member; his business is to make the most of such actualities as
\nexist and to seize on or to advance towards the highest possibilities that can
\nbe developed here or are in the making. Only mankind as a whole can do this with
\nentire effect, by the mass of individual and collective action, in the process
\nof time, in the evolution of the race-experience: but the individual man can
\nhelp towards it in his own limits, can do all these things for himself to a
\ncertain extent in the brief space of life allotted to him; but, especially, his
\nthought and action can be a contribution towards the present intellectual, moral
\nand vital welfare and the future progress of the race. He is capable of a
\ncertain nobility of being; an acceptance of his inevitable and early individual
\nannihilation does not preclude him from making a high use of the will and
\nthought which have been developed in him or from directing them to great ends
\nwhich shall or may be worked out by humanity. Even the temporary character of
\nthe collective being of humanity does not so very much matter,\u2014except in the
\nmost materialist view of existence; for so long as the universal Becoming takes
\nthe form of human body and mind, the thought, the will it has developed in its
\nhuman creature will work itself out and to follow that intelligently is the
\nnatural law and best rule of human life. Humanity and its welfare and progress
\nduring its persistence on earth provide the largest field and the natural limits
\nfor the terrestrial aim of our being; the superior persistence of the race and
\nthe greatness and importance of the collective life should determine the nature
\nand scope of our ideals. But if the progress or welfare of humanity be excluded
\nas not our business or as a delusion, the individual is there; to achieve his
\ngreatest possible perfection or make the most of his life in whatever way his
\nnature demands will then be life’s significance. <\/p>\n

\nThe supraterrestrial<\/span> view admits the reality of the material
\ncosmos and it accepts the temporary duration of earth and human life as the
\nfirst fact we have to start from; but it adds to <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 671<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

it a
\nperception of other worlds or planes of existence which have an eternal or at
\nleast a more permanent duration; it perceives behind the mortality of the bodily
\nlife of man the immortality of the soul within him. A belief in the immortality,
\nthe eternal persistence of the individual human spirit apart from the body is
\nthe keyword of this conception of life. That of itself necessitates its other
\nbelief in higher planes of existence than the material or terrestrial, since for
\na disembodied spirit there can be no abiding place in a world whose every
\noperation depends upon some play of force, whether spiritual, mental, vital or
\nmaterial, in and with the forms of Matter. There arises from this view of things
\nthe idea that the true home of man is beyond and that the earth-life is in some
\nway or other only an episode of his immortality or a deviation from a celestial
\nand spiritual into a material existence. <\/p>\n

\nBut what then is the character, the origin and the end of this deviation? There
\nis first the idea of certain religions, long persistent but now greatly shaken
\nor discredited, that man is a being primarily created as a material living body
\nupon earth into which a newly born divine soul is breathed or else with which it
\nis associated by the fiat of an almighty Creator. A solitary episode, this life
\nis his one opportunity from which he departs to a world of eternal bliss or to a
\nworld of eternal misery either according as the general or preponderant balance
\nof his acts is good or evil or according as he accepts or rejects, knows or
\nignores a particular creed, mode of worship, divine mediator, or else according
\nto the arbitrary predestining caprice of his Creator. But that is the
\nsupraterrestrial<\/span> theory of life in its least rational
\nform of questionable creed or dogma. Taking the idea of the creation of a soul
\nby the physical birth as our starting-point, we may still suppose that by a
\nnatural law, common to all, the rest of its existence has to be pursued beyond
\nin a supraterrestrial<\/span> plane, when the soul has shaken
\noff from it its original matrix of matter like a butterfly escaped from the
\nchrysalis and disporting itself in the air on its light and
\ncoloured<\/span>
\nwings. Or we may suppose preferably a preterrestrial<\/span>
\nexistence of the soul, a fall or descent into matter and a
\nreascension<\/span>
\ninto celestial being. If we admit the soul’s pre-existence, there is no reason
\nto exclude this last possibility as an occasional spiritual occurrence,\u2014a being
\nbelonging to another plane <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 672<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of
\nexistence may, conceivably, assume for some purpose the human body and nature:
\nbut this is not likely to be the universal principle of earth-existence or a
\nsufficient rationale for the creation of the material universe. <\/p>\n

\nIt is also sometimes supposed that the solitary life on earth is a stage only
\nand the development of the being nearer to its original glory occurs in a
\nsuccession of worlds which are so many other stages of its growth,
\nstadia<\/span>
\nof its journey. The material universe, or earth especially, will then be a
\nsumptuously appointed field created by a divine power, wisdom or caprice for the
\nenacting of this interlude. According to the view we choose to take of the
\nmatter, we shall see in it a place of ordeal, a field of development or a scene
\nof spiritual fall and exile. There is too an Indian view which regards the world
\nas a garden of the divine Lila, a play of the divine Being with the conditions
\nof cosmic existence in this world of an inferior Nature; the soul of man takes
\npart in the Lila through a protracted series of births, but it is destined to
\nreascend<\/span> at last into the proper plane of the Divine Being and there
\nenjoy an eternal proximity and communion: this gives a certain rationale to the
\ncreative process and the spiritual adventure which is either absent or not
\nclearly indicated in the other accounts of this kind of soul-movement or
\nsoul-cycle. Always there are three essential characteristics in all these
\nvarying statements of the common principle: first, the belief in the individual
\nimmortality of the human spirit; secondly, as a necessary consequence, the idea
\nof its sojourn on earth as a temporary passage or a departure from its highest
\neternal nature and of a heaven beyond as its proper habitation; thirdly, an
\nemphasis on the development of the ethical and spiritual being as the means of
\nascension and therefore the one proper business of life in this world of Matter. <\/p>\n

\nThese are the three fundamental ways of seeing, each with its mental attitude
\ntowards life, that can be adopted with regard to our existence; the rest are
\nusually midway stations or else variations or composites which attempt to adapt
\nthemselves more freely to the complexity of the problem. For, practically, it is
\nimpossible for man taken as a race, whatever a few individuals may succeed in
\ndoing, to guide his life permanently or <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 673<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

wholly
\nby the leading motive of any of these three attitudes, uniquely, to the
\nexclusion of the others’ claim upon his nature. A confused amalgam of two or
\nmore of them, a conflict or division of his life-motives between them or some
\nattempt at synthesis is his way of dealing with the various impulses of his
\ncomplex being and the intuitions of his mind to which they appeal for their
\nsanction. Almost all men normally devote the major part of their energy to the
\nlife on earth, to the terrestrial needs, interests, desires, ideals of the
\nindividual and the race. It could not be otherwise; for the care of the body,
\nthe sufficient development and satisfaction of the vital and the mental being of
\nman, the pursuit of high individual and large collective ideals which start from
\nthe idea of an attainable human perfection or nearer approach to perfection
\nthrough his normal development, are imposed upon us by the very character of our
\nterrestrial being; they are part of its law, its natural impulse and rule, its
\ncondition of growth, and without these things man could not attain to his full
\nmanhood. Any view of our being which neglects, unduly belittles or intolerantly
\ncondemns them, is therefore by that very fact, whatever its other truth or merit
\nor utility, or whatever its suitability to individuals of a certain temperament
\nor in a certain stage of spiritual evolution, unfit to be the general and
\ncomplete rule of human living. Nature takes good care that the race shall not
\nneglect these aims which are a necessary part of her evolution; for they fall
\nwithin the method and stages of the divine plan in us, and a vigilance for her
\nfirst steps and for the maintenance of their mental and material ground is a
\npreoccupation which she cannot allow to go into the background, since these
\nthings belong to the foundation and body of her structure. <\/p>\n

\nBut also she has implanted in us a sense that there is something in our
\ncomposition which goes beyond this first  <\/span>terrestrial
\nnature of humanity. For this reason the race cannot accept or follow for a very
\nlong time any view of being which ignores this higher and subtler sense and labours<\/span> to confine us entirely to a purely terrestrial way
\nof living. The intuition of a beyond, the idea and feeling of a soul and spirit
\nin us which is other than the mind, life and body or is greater, not limited by
\ntheir formula, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 674<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nreturns upon us and ends by resuming possession. The ordinary man satisfies this
\nsense easily enough by devoting to it his exceptional moments or the latter part
\nof his life when age shall have blunted the zest of his earthly nature, or by
\nrecogniasing<\/span>
\nit as something behind or above his normal action to which he can more or less
\nimperfectly direct his natural being: the exceptional man turns to the supraterrestrial<\/span> as the one aim and law of living and
\ndiminishes or mortifies as much as possible his earthly parts in the hope of
\ndeveloping his celestial nature. There have been epochs in which the supraterrestrial<\/span> view has gained a very powerful hold and
\nthere has been a vacillation between an imperfect human living which cannot take
\nits large natural expansion and a sick ascetic longing for the celestial life
\nwhich also does not acquire in more than a few its best pure and happy movement.
\nThis is a sign of the creation of some false war in the being by the setting up
\nof a standard or a device that ignores the law of evolutionary capacity or an
\noverstress that misses the reconciling equation which must exist somewhere in a
\ndivine dispensation of our nature. <\/p>\n

\nBut, finally, there must open in us, as our mental life deepens and subtler
\nknowledge develops, the perception that the terrestrial and the
\nsupraterrestrial<\/span>
\nare not the only terms of being; there is something which is supracosmic<\/span> and the highest remote origin of our existence.
\nThis perception is easily associated by spiritual enthusiasm, by the height and
\nardour<\/span> of the soul’s aspiration, by the philosophic
\naloofness or the strict logical intolerance of our intellect, by the eagerness
\nof our will or by a sick disgust in our vital being discouraged by the
\ndifficulties or disappointed by the results of life,\u2014by any or all of these
\nmotive-forces,\u2014with a sense of the entire vanity and unreality of all else than
\nthis remote Supreme, the vanity of human life, the unreality of cosmic
\nexistence, the bitter ugliness and cruelty of earth, the insufficiency of
\nheaven, the aimlessness of the repetition of births in the body. Here again the
\nordinary man cannot really live with these ideas; they can only give at most a greyness<\/span> and restless dissatisfaction to the life in which
\nhe must still continue: but the exceptional man abandons all to follow the truth
\nhe has seen and for him they can be the needed food of his spiritual <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 675<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nimpulse or a stimulus to the one achievement that is now for him the one thing
\nthat matters. Periods and countries there have been, in which this view of being
\nhas become very powerful; a considerable part of the race has swerved aside to
\nthe life of the ascetic,\u2014not always with a real call to it,\u2014the rest adhered to
\nthe normal life but with an underlying belief in its unreality, a belief which
\ncan bring about by too much reiteration and insistence an unnerving of the
\nlife-impulse and an increasing littleness of its motives, or even, by a subtle
\nreaction, an absorption in an ordinary narrow living through a missing of our
\nnatural response to the Divine Being’s larger joy in cosmic existence and a
\nfailure of the great progressive human idealism by which we are spurred to a
\ncollective self-development and a noble embrace of the battle and the
\nlabour<\/span>. Here again there is a sign of some insufficiency in the statement
\nof the supracosmic<\/span> Reality, perhaps an overstatement or a mistaken
\nopposition, a missing of the divine equation, of the total sense of creation and
\nthe entire will of the Creator.
\n <\/p>\n

\nThat equation can only be found if we recognise<\/span> the
\npurport of our whole complex human nature in its right place in the cosmic
\nmovement, what is needed is to give its full legitimate value to each part of
\nour composite being and many-sided aspiration and find out the key of their
\nunity as well as their difference. The finding must be by a synthesis or an
\nintegration and, since development is clearly the law of the human soul, it is
\nmost likely to be discovered by an evolutionary synthesis. A synthesis of this
\nkind was attempted in the ancient Indian culture. It accepted four legitimate
\nmotives of human living,\u2014man’s vital interests and needs, his desires, his
\nethical and religious aspiration, his ultimate spiritual aim and destiny,\u2014in
\nother words, the claims of his vital, physical and emotional being, the claims
\nof his ethical and religious being governed by a knowledge of the law of God and
\nNature and man, and the claims of his spiritual longing for the Beyond for which
\nhe seeks satisfaction by an ultimate release from an ignorant mundane existence.
\nIt provided for a period of education and preparation based on this idea of
\nlife, a period of normal living to satisfy human desires and interests under the
\nmoderating rule of the ethical and religious <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 676<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

part
\nin us, a period of withdrawal and spiritual preparation, and a last period of
\nrenunciation of life and release into the spirit. Evidently, if applied as a
\nuniversal rule, this prescribed norm, this delineation of the curve of our
\njourney, would miss the fact that it is impossible for all to trace out the
\nwhole circle of development in a single short lifetime; but it was modified by
\nthe theory of a complete evolution pursued through a long succession of rebirths
\nbefore one could be fit for a spiritual liberation. This synthesis with its
\nspiritual insight, largeness of view, symmetry, completeness did much to raise
\nthe tone of human life; but eventually it collapsed: its place was occupied by
\nan exaggeration of the impulse of renunciation which destroyed the symmetry of
\nthe system and cut it into two movements of life in opposition to each other,
\nthe normal life of interests and desires with an ethical and religious
\ncolouring<\/span>
\nand the abnormal or supernormal inner life founded on renunciation. The old
\nsynthesis in fact contained in itself the seed of this exaggeration and could
\nnot but lapse into it: for if we regard the escape from life as our desirable
\nend, if we omit to hold up any high offer of life-fulfilment<\/span>,
\nif life has not a divine significance in it, the impatience of the human
\nintellect and will must end by driving at a short cut and getting rid as much as
\npossible of any more tedious and dilatory processes; if it cannot do that or if
\nit is incapable of following the short cut, it is left with the ego and its
\nsatisfactions but with nothing greater to be achieved here. Life is split into
\nthe spiritual and the mundane and there can only be an abrupt transition, not a
\nharmony or reconciliation of these parts of our nature. <\/p>\n

\nA spiritual evolution, an unfolding here of the Being within from birth to
\nbirth, of which man becomes the central instrument and human life at its highest
\noffers the critical turning-point, is the link needed for the reconciliation of
\nlife and spirit; for it allows us to take into account the total nature of man
\nand to recognise<\/span> the legitimate place of his triple attraction, to
\nearth, to heaven and to the supreme Reality. But a complete solution of its
\noppositions can be arrived at only on this basis that the lower consciousness of
\nmind, life and body cannot arrive at its full meaning until it is taken up,
\nrestated, transformed by the light <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 677<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

and
\npower and joy of the higher spiritual consciousness, while the higher too does
\nnot stand in its full right relation to the lower by mere rejection, but by this
\nassumption and domination, this taking up of its unfulfilled values, this
\nrestatement and transformation,\u2014a
\nspiritualising<\/span> and supramentalising<\/span>
\nof the mental, vital and physical nature. The terrestrial ideal, which has been
\nso powerful in the modern mind, restored man and his life on earth and the
\ncollective hope of the race to a prominent position and created an insistent
\ndemand for a solution; this is the good it has accomplished. But by overdoing
\nand exclusiveness it unduly limited man’s scope, it ignored that which is the
\nhighest and in the end the largest thing in him, and by this limitation it
\nmissed the full pursuit of its own object. If mind were the highest thing in man
\nand Nature, then indeed this frustration might not result; still, the limitation
\nof scope would be there, a narrow possibility, a circumscribed prospect. But if
\nmind is only a partial unfolding of consciousness and there are powers beyond of
\nwhich Nature in our race is capable, then not only does our hope upon earth, let
\nalone what is beyond it, depend upon their development, but this becomes the one
\nproper road of our evolution. <\/p>\n

\nMind and life themselves cannot grow into their fullness except by the opening
\nup of the larger and greater consciousness to which mind only approaches. Such a
\nlarger and greater consciousness is the spiritual, for the spiritual
\nconsciousness is not only higher than the rest but more embracing. Universal as
\nwell as transcendent, it can take up mind and life into its light and give them
\nthe true and utmost realisation<\/span> of all for which they
\nare seeking: for it has a greater instrumentality of knowledge, a fountain of
\ndeeper power and will, an unlimited reach and intensity of love and joy and
\nbeauty. These are the things for which our mind, life and body are seeking,
\nknowledge, power and joy, and to reject that by which all these arrive at their
\nutmost plenitude is to shut them out from their own highest consummation. An
\nopposite exaggeration demanding only some colourless<\/span>
\npurity of spiritual existence nullifies the creative action of the spirit and
\nexcludes from us all that the Divine manifests in its being: it leaves room only
\nfor an evolution without sense <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 678<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

or
\nfulfilment<\/span>,\u2014for a cutting off of all that has been evolved is the sole
\nculmination; it turns the process of our being into the meaningless curve of a
\nplunge into Ignorance and return out of it or erects a wheel of cosmic Becoming
\nwith only an escape-issue. The intermediary, the
\nsupraterrestrial<\/span> aspiration cuts short the fulfilment<\/span>
\nof the being above by not proceeding to its highest
\nrealisation<\/span> of oneness and diminishes it below by not allowing a proper
\namplitude of sense to its presence in the material universe and its acceptance
\nof life in an earthly body. A large relation of unity, an integration, restores
\nthe balance, illumines the whole truth of being and links together the steps of
\nNature.            <\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn this integration the supracosmic<\/span> Reality stands as
\nthe supreme Truth of being; to realise<\/span> it is the
\nhighest reach of our consciousness. But it is this highest Reality which is also
\nthe cosmic being, the cosmic consciousness, the cosmic will and life: it has put
\nthese things forth, not outside itself but in its own being, not as an opposite
\nprinciple but as its own self-unfolding and self-expression. Cosmic being is not
\na meaningless freak or phantasy<\/span> or a chance error;
\nthere is a divine significance and truth in it: the manifold self-expression of
\nthe spirit is its high sense, the Divine itself is the key of its enigma. A
\nperfect self-expression of the spirit is the object of our terrestrial
\nexistence. This cannot be achieved if we have not grown conscious of the supreme
\nReality; for it is only by the touch of the Absolute that we can arrive at our
\nown absolute. But neither can it be done to the exclusion of the cosmic Reality:
\nwe must become universal, for without an opening into universality the
\nindividual remains incomplete. The individual separating himself from the All to
\nreach the Highest, loses himself in the supreme heights; including in himself
\nthe cosmic consciousness, he recovers his wholeness of self and still keeps his
\nsupreme gain of transcendence; he fulfils it and himself in the cosmic
\ncompleteness. A realised<\/span>
\nunity of the transcendent, the universal and the individual is an indispensable
\ncondition for the fullness of the self-expressing spiri<\/span>
\n: for the universe is the field of its totality of self-expression, while it is
\nthrough the individual that its evolutionary self-unfolding here comes to its
\nacme. But this supposes <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 679<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

not
\nonly a real being of the individual, but the revelation of our secret eternal
\noneness with the Supreme and with all cosmic existence. In his self-integration
\nthe soul of the individual must awake to universality and to transcendence. <\/p>\n

\nThe supraterrestrial<\/span> existence is also a truth of being; for the
\nmaterial is not the only plane of our existence; other planes of consciousness
\nthere are to which we can attain and which have already their hidden links with
\nus: not to reach up to whatever greater regions of the soul are open to us, not
\nto have the experience of them, not to know and manifest their law in ourselves
\nis to fall short of the height and fullness of our being. But worlds of a higher
\nconsciousness are not the only possible scene and habitation of the perfected
\nsoul; nor can we find in any unchanging typal<\/span> world the final or total sense of the Spirit’s
\nself-expression in the cosmos: the material world, this earth, this human life
\nare a part of the Spirit’s self-expression and have their divine possibility;
\nthat possibility is evolutionary and it contains the possibilities of all the
\nother worlds in it, unrealised<\/span> but realisable<\/span>. Earth-life is not a lapse into the mire of
\nsomething undivine<\/span>, vain and miserable, offered by
\nsome Power to itself as a spectacle or to the embodied soul as a thing to be
\nsuffered and then cast away from it: it is the scene of the evolutionary
\nunfolding of the being which moves towards the revelation of a supreme spiritual
\nlight and power and joy and oneness, but includes in it also the manifold
\ndiversity of the self-achieving spirit. There is an all-seeing purpose in the
\nterrestrial creation; a divine plan is working itself out through its
\ncontradictions and perplexities which are a sign of the many-sided achievement
\ntowards which are being led the soul’s growth and the
\nendeavour<\/span>
\nof Nature.
\n <\/p>\n

\nIt is true that the soul can ascend into worlds of a greater consciousness
\nbeyond the earth, but it is also true that the power of these worlds, the power
\nof a greater consciousness has to develop itself here; the embodiment of the
\nsoul is the means for that embodiment. All the higher powers of Consciousness
\nexist because they are powers of the Supreme Reality. Our terrestrial being has
\nalso the same truth; it is a becoming of the One Reality which has to embody in
\nitself these greater <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 680<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\npowers. Its present appearance is a veiled and partial figure and to limit
\nourselves to that first figure, to the present formula of an imperfect humanity,
\nis to exclude our divine potentialities; we have to bring a wider meaning into
\nour human life and manifest in it the much more that we secretly are. Our
\nmortality is only justified in the light of our immortality; our earth can know
\nand be all itself only by opening to the heavens; the individual can see himself
\naright and use his world divinely only when he has entered into greater planes
\nof being and seen the light of the Supreme and lived in the being and power of
\nthe Divine and Eternal.<\/p>\n

\nAn integration of this kind would not be possible if a spiritual evolution were
\nnot the sense of our birth and terrestrial existence; the evolution of mind,
\nlife and spirit in Matter is the sign that this integration, this completed
\nmanifestation of a secret self contained in it is its significance. A complete
\ninvolution of all that the Spirit is and its evolutionary self-unfolding are the
\ndouble term of our material existence. There is a possibility of self-expression
\nby an always unveiled luminous development of the being, a possibility also of
\nvarious expression in perfect types fixed and complete in their own nature: that
\nis the principle of becoming in the higher worlds; they are
\ntypal<\/span>
\nand not evolutionary in their life principle; they exist each in its own
\nperfection, but within the limits of a stationary world-formula. But there is
\nalso a possibility of self-expression by self-finding, a deployment which takes
\nthe form and goes through the progression of a self-veiling and an adventure of
\nself-recovery: that is the principle of becoming in this universe of which an
\ninvolution of consciousness and concealment of the spirit in Matter is the first
\nappearance. <\/p>\n

\nAn involution of spirit in the Inconscience<\/span> is the
\nbeginning; an evolution in the Ignorance with its play of the possibilities of a
\npartial developing knowledge is the middle, and the cause of the anomalies of
\nour present nature,\u2014our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a
\ngrowth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; a consummation in a
\ndeployment of the spirit’s self-knowledge and the self-power of its divine being
\nand consciousness is the culmination: these are the three stages <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 681<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of
\nthis cycle of the spirit’s progressive self-expression in life. The two stages
\nthat have already their play seem at first sight to deny the possibility of the
\nlater consummating stage of the cycle, but logically they imply its emergence;
\nfor if the inconscience<\/span> has evolved consciousness, the partial
\nconsciousness already reached must surely evolve into complete consciousness. It
\nis a perfected and divinised<\/span> life for which the
\nearth-nature is seeking, and this seeking is a sign of the Divine Will in
\nNature. Other seekings<\/span> also there are and these too
\nfind their means of self-fulfilment<\/span>; a withdrawal into
\nthe supreme peace or ecstasy, a withdrawal into the bliss of the Divine Presence
\nare open to the soul in earth-existence: for the Infinite in its manifestation
\nhas many possibilities and is not confined by its formulations. But neither of
\nthese withdrawals can be the fundamental intention in the Becoming itself here;
\nfor then an evolutionary progression would not have been undertaken,\u2014such a
\nprogression here can only have for its aim a self-fulfilment<\/span>
\nhere: a progressive manifestation of this kind can only have for its soul of
\nsignificance the revelation of Being in a perfect Becoming. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 682<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XVI   The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence    When all the desires that cling to the heart are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","wpcat-27-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","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=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}