{"id":1251,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:34","slug":"05-the-progress-to-knowledge-god-man-and-nature-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\/05-the-progress-to-knowledge-god-man-and-nature-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","title":{"rendered":"-05_The Progress to Knowledge \u00e2\u20ac\u201d God, Man and Nature .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nC<\/font>HAPTER<\/font>
\nXVII<\/p>\n

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


\nThe Progress to Knowledge — God, Man and Nature <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nThou art That, O Swetaketu.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChhandogya Upanishad.\u00b9
\n<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\nThe living being is none else than the Brahman, the whole world<\/font><\/p>\n

\n is the Brahman.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVivekachudamani.<\/font>\u00b2
\n<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMy supreme Nature has become the living being and this
\n\t\tworld <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tis upheld by it… all beings have this for their source of birth.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGita.\u00b3
\n<\/font>.<\/font> <\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThou art man and woman, boy and girl; old and worn thou<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t walkest bent over a staff; thou art the blue bird and the green<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t and the
\n\t\tscarlet-eyed…
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/font>4
\n<\/font> 4<\/font>IV. 3, 4<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis whole world is filled with beings who are His
\n\t\tmembers.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/font>5
\n<\/font> <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    <\/font>  A<\/font><\/b>N INVOLUTION<\/font> <\/font>of the Divine Existence, the spiritual Reality, in the apparent inconscience of Matter is the starting-point of the
\nevolution. But that Reality is in its nature an eternal Existence, Consciousness, Delight of Existence: the evolution must then
\nbe an emergence of this Existence, Consciousness, Delight of Existence, not at first in its essence or totality but in
\nevolutionary forms that express or disguise it. Out of the Inconscient, Existence appears in a first evolutionary form as
\nsubstance of Matter created by an inconscient Energy. Consciousness, involved and non-apparent in Matter, first emerges
\nin the disguise of vital vibrations, animate but subconscient; then, in imperfect formulations of a conscient life, it strives
\ntowards self-finding through successive forms of that material substance, forms more and more adapted to its own
\ncompleter expression. Consciousness in life, throwing off the primal insensibility of a material inanimation and nescience,
\nlabours to find itself more and more entirely in the Ignorance <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

         
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nVI. 8. 7.<\/font>  \u00b2<\/font>
\nVerse 479.  \u00b3<\/font> VII. 5, 6   
\n<\/font>5 <\/font>IV. 10.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-683<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

which is its first inevitable formulation; but it
\nachieves at first only a primary mental perception and a vital
\nawareness of self
\nand things, a life-perception which in its first forms depends on an
\ninternal sensation responsive to the contacts of other life
\nand of Matter. Consciousness labours to manifest as best it can through
\nthe inadequacy of sensation its own inherent delight
\nof being; but it can only formulate a partial pain and pleasure. In man
\nthe energising Consciousness appears as Mind more
\nclearly aware of itself and things; this is still a partial and
\nlimited, not an integral power of itself, but a first conceptive
\npotentiality and promise of integral emergence is visible. That
\nintegral emergence is the goal of evolving Nature.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nMan is there to affirm himself in the universe, that is his first
\nbusiness, but also to evolve and finally to exceed himself:
\nhe has to enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his partial
\nconsciousness into an integral consciousness; he has to
\nachieve mastery of his environment but also world-union and
\nworld-harmony; he has to realise his individuality but also to
\nenlarge it into a cosmic self and a universal and spiritual delight of
\nexistence. A transformation, a chastening and correction
\nof all that is obscure, erroneous and ignorant in his mentality, an
\nultimate arrival at a free and wide harmony and
\nluminousness of knowledge and will and feeling and action and
\ncharacter, is the evident intention of his nature; it is the ideal
\nwhich the creative Energy has imposed on his intelligence, a need
\nimplanted by her in his mental and vital substance. But
\nthis can only be accomplished by his growing into a larger being and a
\nlarger consciousness: self-enlargement,
\nself-fulfilment, self-evolution from what he partially and temporarily
\nis in his actual and apparent nature to what he
\ncompletely is in his secret self and spirit and therefore can become
\neven in his manifest existence, is the object of his
\ncreation. This hope is the justification of his life upon earth amidst
\nthe phenomena of the cosmos. The outer apparent man,
\nan ephemeral being subject to the constraints of his material
\nembodiment and imprisoned in a limited mentality, has to
\nbecome the inner real Man, master of himself and his environment and
\nuniversal in his being. In a more vivid and less
\nmetaphysical language, the natural man has to evolve himself\n<\/p>\n

\nPage 684<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

into the divine Man; the sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of Immortality. It is on this account that the
\nhuman birth can be described as the turning-point in the evolution, the critical stage in earth-nature.<\/p>\n

\n

     
\nIt follows at once that the knowledge we have to arrive at is not truth
\nof the intellect; it is not right belief, right opinions,
\nright information about oneself and things,—that is only the surface
\nmind’s idea of knowledge. To arrive at some mental
\nconception about God and ourselves and the world is an object good for
\nthe intellect but not large enough for the Spirit; it
\nwill not make us the conscious sons of Infinity. Ancient Indian thought
\nmeant by knowledge a consciousness which
\npossesses the highest Truth in a direct perception and in
\nself-experience; to become, to be the Highest that we know is the
\nsign that we really have the knowledge. For the same reason, to shape
\nour practical life, our actions as far as may be in
\nconsonance with our intellectual notions of truth and right or with a
\nsuccessful pragmatic knowledge,—an ethical or a vital fulfilment,—is
\nnot and cannot be the ultimate aim of our life; our aim must be to grow
\ninto our true being, our being of Spirit,
\nthe being of the supreme and universal Existence, Consciousness,
\nDelight, Sachchidananda.\n<\/p>\n

     All our existence depends
\non that Existence, it is that which is evolving in us; we are a being
\nof that Existence, a state
\nof consciousness of that Consciousness, an energy of that conscious
\nEnergy, a will-to-delight of being, delight of
\nconsciousness, delight of energy born of that Delight: this is the root
\nprinciple of our existence. But our surface formulation
\nof these things is not that, it is a mistranslation into the terms of
\nthe Ignorance. Our I is not that spiritual being which can
\nlook on the Divine Existence and say, “That am I”; our mentality is not
\nthat spiritual consciousness; our will is not that force
\nof consciousness; our pain and pleasure, even our highest joys and
\necstasies are not that delight of being. On the surface we
\nare still an ego figuring self, an ignorance turning into knowledge, a
\nwill labouring towards true force, a desire seeking for
\nthe delight of existence. To become ourselves by exceeding
\nourselves,—so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind
\nseer who knew not the self of\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-685<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

which he spoke,—is the difficult and dangerous
\nnecessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed
\non
\nus, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the
\ndark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within
\nand above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness
\nand eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable
\ndivine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our
\nreal being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of
\nbeing, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the
\nconcealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.\n<\/p>\n

     Intellectual knowledge and
\npractical action are devices of Nature by which we are able to express
\nso much of our
\nbeing, consciousness, energy, power of enjoyment as we have been able
\nto actualise in our apparent nature and by which
\nwe attempt to know more, express and actualise more, grow always more
\ninto the much that we have yet to actualise. But
\nour intellect and mental knowledge and will of action are not our only
\nmeans, not all the instruments of our consciousness
\nand energy: our nature, the name which we give to the Force of being in
\nus in its actual and potential play and power, is
\ncomplex in its ordering of consciousness, complex in its
\ninstrumentation of force. Every discovered or discoverable term and
\ncircumstance of that complexity which we can get into working order, we
\nneed to actualise in the highest and finest values
\npossible to us and to use in its widest and richest powers for the one
\nobject. That object is to become, to be conscious, to
\nincrease continually in our realised being and awareness of self and
\nthings, in our actualised force and joy of being, and to
\nexpress that becoming dynamically in such an action on the world and
\nourselves that we and it shall grow more and always
\nyet more towards the highest possible reach, largest possible breadth
\nof universality and infinity. All man’s age-long effort,
\nhis action, society, art, ethics, science, religion, all the manifold
\nactivities by which he expresses and increases his mental,
\nvital, physical, spiritual existence, are episodes in the vast drama of
\nthis endeavour of Nature and have behind their limited
\napparent aims no other true sense or foundation. For the individual to
\narrive at the divine universality and supreme infinity,
\nlive in it, possess it, to be, know, feel and express that\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-686 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

alone in all his being, consciousness, energy, delight of being is what the ancient seers of the Veda meant by the
\nKnowledge; that was the Immortality which they set before man as his divine culmination.<\/p>\n

     
\nBut by the nature of his mentality, by his inlook into himself and his
\noutlook on the world, by his original limitation in both
\nthrough sense and body to the relative, the obvious and the apparent,
\nman is obliged to move step by step and at first
\nobscurely and ignorantly in this immense evolutionary movement. It is
\nnot possible for him to envisage being at first in the
\ncompleteness of its unity: it presents itself to him through diversity,
\nand his search for knowledge is preoccupied with three
\nprincipal categories which sum up for him all its diversity;
\nhimself,—man or individual soul,—God, and Nature. The first is
\nthat of which alone he is directly aware in his normal ignorant being;
\nhe sees himself, the individual, separate apparently in
\nits existence, yet always inseparable from the rest of being, striving
\nto be sufficient, yet always insufficient to itself, since
\nnever has it been known to come into existence or to exist or to
\nculminate in its existence apart from the rest, without their
\naid and independently of universal being and universal nature.
\nSecondly, there is that which he knows only indirectly by his
\nmind and bodily senses and its effects upon them, yet must strive
\nalways to know more and more completely: for he sees
\nalso this rest of being with which he is so closely identified and yet
\nfrom which he is so separate,—the cosmos, world,
\nNature, other individual existences whom he perceives as always like
\nhimself and yet always unlike; for they are the same
\nin nature even to the plant and the animal and yet different in nature.
\nEach seems to go its own way, to be a separate being,
\nand yet each is impelled by the same movement and follows in its own
\ngrade the same vast curve of evolution as himself.
\nFinally, he sees or rather divines something else which he does not
\nknow at all except quite indirectly; for he knows it only
\nthrough himself and that at which his being aims, through the world and
\nthat at which it seems to point and which it is either
\nstriving obscurely to reach and express by its imperfect figures or, at
\nleast, founds them without knowing it on their secret
\nrelation to that invisible Reality and occult Infinite.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-687<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

     This third and unknown,
\nthis tertium quid, he names God; and by the word he means somewhat or
\nsomeone who is the
\nSupreme, the Divine, the Cause, the All, one of these things or all of
\nthem at once, the perfection or the totality of all that
\nhere is partial or imperfect, the absolute of all these myriad
\nrelativities, the Unknown by learning of whom the real secret of
\nthe known can become to him more and more intelligible. Man has tried
\nto deny all these categories,—he has tried to deny
\nhis own real existence, he has tried to deny the real existence of the
\ncosmos, he has tried to deny the real existence of God.
\nBut behind all these denials we see the same constant necessity of his
\nattempt at knowledge; for he feels the need of
\narriving at a unity of these three terms, even if it can only be done
\nby suppressing two of them or merging them in the other
\nthat is left. To do that he affirms only himself as cause and all the
\nrest as mere creations of his mind, or he affirms only
\nNature and all the rest as nothing but phenomena of Nature-Energy, or
\nhe affirms only God, the Absolute, and all the rest as
\nno more than illusions which That thrusts upon itself or on us by an
\ninexplicable Maya. None of these denials can wholly
\nsatisfy, none solves the entire problem or can be indisputable and
\ndefinitive,—least of all the one to which his
\nsense-governed intellect is most prone, but in which it can never
\npersist for long; the denial of God is a denial of his true
\nquest and his own supreme Ultimate. The ages of naturalistic atheism
\nhave always been short-lived because they can never
\nsatisfy the secret knowledge in man: that cannot be the final Veda
\nbecause it does not correspond with the Veda within
\nwhich all mental knowledge is labouring to bring out; from the moment
\nthat this lack of correspondence is felt, a solution,
\nhowever skilful it may be and however logically complete, has been
\njudged by the eternal Witness in man and is doomed; it
\ncannot be the last word of Knowledge.\n<\/p>\n

     Man as he is is not
\nsufficient to himself, nor separate, nor is he the Eternal and the All;
\ntherefore by himself he cannot
\nbe the explanation of the cosmos of which his mind, life and body are
\nso evidently an infinitesimal detail. The visible cosmos
\ntoo, he finds, is not sufficient to itself, nor does it explain itself
\neven by its unseen material forces; for there is too much that
\nhe finds\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-688<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

both in the world and in himself which is beyond them and of which they seem only to be a face, an epidermis or even a
\nmask. Neither his intellect, nor his intuitions, nor his feeling can do without a One or a Oneness to whom or to which these
\nworld-forces and himself may stand in some relation which supports them and gives them their significance. He feels that
\nthere must be an Infinite which holds these finites, is in, behind and about all this visible cosmos, bases the harmony and
\ninterrelation and essential oneness of multitudinous things. His thought needs an Absolute on which these innumerable and
\nfinite relativities depend for their existence, an ultimate Truth of things, a creating Power or Force or a Being who originates
\nand upholds all these innumerable beings in the universe. Let him call it what he will, he must arrive at a Supreme, a Divine,
\na Cause, an Infinite and Eternal, a Permanent, a Perfection to which all tends and aspires, or an All to which everything
\nperpetually and invisibly amounts and without which they could not be.\n<\/p>\n

     Yet even this Absolute he
\ncannot really affirm by itself and to the exclusion of the two other
\ncategories; for then he has
\nonly made a violent leap away from the problem he is here to solve, and
\nhe himself and the cosmos remain an inexplicable
\nmystification or a purposeless mystery. A certain part of his intellect
\nand his longing for rest may be placated by such a
\nsolution, just as his physical intelligence is easily satisfied by a
\ndenial of the Beyond and a deification of material Nature; but
\nhis heart, his will, the strongest and intensest parts of his being
\nremain without a meaning, void of purpose or justification, or
\nbecome merely a random foolishness agitating itself like a vain and
\nrestless shadow against the eternal repose of the pure
\nExistence or amidst the eternal inconscience of the universe. As for
\nthe cosmos, it remains there in the singular character of
\na carefully constructed lie of the Infinite, a monstrously aggressive
\nand yet really non-existent anomaly, a painful and
\nmiserable paradox with false shows of wonder and beauty and delight. Or
\nelse it is a huge play of blind organised Energy
\nwithout significance and his own being a temporary minute anomaly
\nincomprehensibly occurring in that senseless vastness.
\nThat way no satisfying fulfilment lies for the consciousness, the
\nenergy that has manifested itself in the world\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-689<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

and in man: the mind needs to find something that links all together, something by which Nature is fulfilled in man and man in
\nNature and both find themselves in God, because the Divine is ultimately self-revealed in both man and Nature.\n<\/p>\n

     An acceptance, a perception
\nof the unity of these three categories is essential to the Knowledge;
\nit is towards their
\nunity as well as their integrality that the growing self-consciousness
\nof the individual opens out and at which it must arrive if
\nit is to be satisfied of itself and complete. For without the
\nrealisation of unity the Knowledge of none of the three can be
\nentire; their unity is for each the condition of its own integrality.
\nIt is, again, by knowing each in its completeness that all
\nthree meet in our consciousness and become one; it is in a total
\nknowledge that all knowing becomes one and indivisible.
\nOtherwise it is only by division and rejection of two of them from the
\nthird that we could get at any kind of oneness. Man
\ntherefore has to enlarge his knowledge of himself, his knowledge of the
\nworld and his knowledge of God until in their totality
\nhe becomes aware of their mutual indwelling and oneness. For so long as
\nhe knows them only in part, there will be an
\nincompleteness resulting in division, and so long as he has not
\nrealised them in a reconciling unity, he will not have found
\ntheir total truth or the fundamental significances of existence.<\/p>\n

     
\nThis is not to say that the Supreme is not self-existent and self-sufficient; God exists in Himself and not by virtue of the
\ncosmos or of man, while man and cosmos exist by virtue of God and not in themselves except in so far as their being is one
\nwith the being of God. But still they are a manifestation of the power of God and even in His eternal existence their spiritual
\nreality must in some way be present or implied, since otherwise there would be no possibility of their manifestation or,
\nmanifested, they would have no significance. What appears here as man is an individual being of the Divine; the Divine
\nextended in multiplicity is the Self of all individual existences.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

Moreover, it is through the knowledge of self and the world that man arrives at the knowledge of God and he cannot attain
\nto it otherwise. It is not by rejecting God’s manifestation, but by rejecting his own ignorance of it and\n<\/p>\n

         
\n\u00b9<\/font>eko vaśī<\/font> sarvabhū<\/font>tā<\/font>ntarā<\/font>tmā<\/font>—Katha
\nUpanishad, <\/i>II. 2. 12.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-690<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

the results of his ignorance, that he can best lift
\nup and offer the whole of his being and consciousness and energy and
\njoy of
\nbeing into the Divine Existence. He may do this through himself, one
\nmanifestation, or he may do it through the universe,
\nanother manifestation. Arriving through himself alone, it is possible
\nfor him to plunge into an individual immergence or
\nabsorption in the Indefinable and to lose the universe. Arriving
\nthrough the universe alone, he can sink his individuality either
\nin the impersonality of universal being or in a dynamic self of
\nuniversal Conscious-Force; he merges into the universal self or
\nhe becomes an impersonal channel of the cosmic Energy. Arriving through
\nthe equal integrality of both and seizing through
\nthem and beyond them on all the aspects of the Divine, he exceeds both
\nand fulfils them in that exceeding: he possesses the
\nDivine in his being, even as he is enveloped, penetrated, pervaded,
\npossessed by the Divine Being, Consciousness, Light,
\nPower, Delight, Knowledge; he possesses God in himself and God in the
\nuniverse. The All-Knowledge justifies to him its
\ncreation of himself and justifies by him perfected its creation of the
\nworld it has made. All this becomes entirely real and
\neffective by an ascension into a supramental and supreme supernature
\nand the descent of its powers into the manifestation; but even while
\nthat consummation is still difficult and distant, the true knowledge
\ncan be made subjectively real by a spiritual reflection or reception in
\nmind-life-body Nature. <\/p>\n

     But this spiritual truth and true
\naim of his being is not allowed to appear till late in his journey: for the
\nearly preparatory business of man in the evolutionary steps of Nature is to
\naffirm, to make distinct and rich, to possess firmly, powerfully and completely
\nhis own individuality. As a consequence, he has in the beginning principally to
\noccupy himself with his own ego. In this egoistic phase of his evolution the
\nworld and others are less important to him than himself, are indeed only
\nimportant as aids and occasions for his self-affirmation. God too at this stage
\nis less important to him than he is to himself, and therefore in earlier
\nformations, on the lower levels of religious development, God or the gods are
\ntreated as if they existed for man, as supreme instruments for the satisfaction
\nof his desires, his helpers <\/p>\n

\nPage-691 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

in his task of getting the world in which he lives
\nto satisfy his needs and wants and ambitions. This primary egoistic
\ndevelopment with all its sins and violences and crudities is by no
\nmeans to be regarded, in its proper place, as an evil or an
\nerror of Nature; it is necessary for man’s first work, the finding of
\nhis own individuality and its perfect disengagement from
\nthe lower subconscient in which the individual is overpowered by the
\nmass-consciousness of the world and entirely subject
\nto the mechanical workings of Nature. Man the individual has to affirm,
\nto distinguish his personality against Nature, to be
\npowerfully himself, to evolve all his human capacities of force and
\nknowledge and enjoyment so that he may turn them upon
\nher and upon the world with more and more mastery and force; his
\nself-discriminating egoism is given him as a means for
\nthis primary purpose. Until he has thus developed his individuality,
\nhis personality, his separate capacity, he cannot be fit for
\nthe greater work before him or successfully turn his faculties to
\nhigher, larger and more divine ends. He has to affirm
\nhimself in the Ignorance before he can perfect himself in the
\nKnowledge.\n<\/p>\n

     For the initiation of the
\nevolutionary emergence from the Inconscient works out by two forces, a
\nsecret cosmic
\nconsciousness and an individual consciousness manifest on the surface.
\nThe secret cosmic consciousness remains secret
\nand subliminal to the surface individual; it organises itself on the
\nsurface by the creation of separate objects and beings. But
\nwhile it organises the separate object and the body and mind of the
\nindividual being, it creates also collective powers of
\nconsciousness which are large subjective formations of cosmic Nature;
\nbut it does not provide for them an organised mind
\nand body, it bases them on the group of individuals, develops for them
\na group-mind, a changing yet continuous group-body.
\nIt follows that only as the individuals become more and more conscious
\ncan the group-being also become more and more
\nconscious; the growth of the individual is the indispensable means for
\nthe inner growth as distinguished from the outer force
\nand expansion of the collective being. This indeed is the dual
\nimportance of the individual that it is through him that the
\ncosmic spirit organises its collective units and makes them
\nself-expressive and progressive and\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-692<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

through him that it raises Nature from the
\nInconscience to the Superconscience and exalts it to meet the
\nTranscendent. In
\nthe mass the collective consciousness is near to the Inconscient; it
\nhas a subconscious, an obscure and mute movement
\nwhich needs the individual to express it, to bring it to light, to
\norganise it and make it effective. The mass-consciousness by
\nitself moves by a vague, half-formed or unformed subliminal and
\ncommonly subconscient impulse rising to the surface; it is
\nprone to a blind or half-seeing unanimity which suppresses the
\nindividual in the common movement: if it thinks, it is by the
\nmotto, the slogan, the watchword, the common crude or formed idea, the
\ntraditional, the accepted customary notion; it acts,
\nwhen not by instinct or on impulse, then by the rule of the pack, the
\nherd-mentality, the type-law. This mass-consciousness,
\nlife, action can be extraordinarily effective if it can find an
\nindividual or a few powerful individuals to embody, express, lead,
\norganise it; its sudden crowd-movements can also be irresistible for
\nthe moment like the motion of an avalanche or the rush
\nof a tempest. The suppression or entire subordination of the individual
\nin the mass-consciousness can give a great practical
\nefficiency to a nation or a community if the subliminal collective
\nbeing can build a binding tradition or find a group, a class, a
\nhead to embody its spirit and direction; the strength of powerful
\nmilitary states, of communities with a tense and austere
\nculture rigidly imposed on its individuals, the success of the great
\nworld-conquerors, had behind it this secret of Nature. But
\nthis is an efficiency of the outer life, and that life is not the
\nhighest or last term of our being. There is a mind in us, there is a
\nsoul and spirit, and our life has no true value if it has not in it a
\ngrowing consciousness, a developing mind, and if life and
\nmind are not an expression, an instrument, a means of liberation and
\nfulfilment for the soul, the indwelling Spirit.\n<\/p>\n

     But the progress of the
\nmind, the growth of the soul, even of the mind and soul of the
\ncollectivity, depends on the
\nindividual, on his sufficient freedom and independence, on his separate
\npower to express and bring into being what is still
\nunexpressed in the mass, still undeveloped from the subconscience or
\nnot yet brought out from within or brought down from the Super-<\/p>\n

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\n

conscience. The collectivity is a mass, a field of formation; the individual is the diviner of truth, the form-maker, the
\ncreator. In the crowd the individual loses his inner direction and becomes a cell of the mass-body moved by the collective
\nwill or idea or the mass-impulse. He has to stand apart, affirm his separate reality in the whole, his own mind emerging from
\nthe common mentality, his own life distinguishing itself in the common life-uniformity, even as his body has developed
\nsomething unique and recognisable in the common physicality. He has, even, in the end to retire into himself in order to find
\nhimself, and it is only when he has found himself that he can become spiritually one with all; if he tries to achieve that
\noneness in the mind, in the vital, in the physical and has not yet a sufficiently strong individuality, he may be overpowered by
\nthe mass-consciousness and lose his soul-fulfilment, his mind-fulfilment, his life-fulfilment, become only a cell of the
\nmass-body. The collective being may then become strong and dominant, but it is likely to lose its plasticity, its evolutionary
\nmovement: the great evolutionary periods of humanity have taken place in communities where the individual became active,
\nmentally, vitally or spiritually alive. For this reason Nature invented the ego that the individual might disengage himself from
\nthe inconscience or subconscience of the mass and become an independent living mind, life-power, soul, spirit, co-ordinating
\nhimself with the world around him but not drowned in it and separately inexistent and ineffective. For the individual is indeed
\npart of the cosmic being, but he is also something more, he is a soul that has descended from the Transcendence. This he
\ncannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near enough to the original
\nSuperconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he
\ncan find himself as the soul or spirit. <\/p>\n

     Still, to find his egoistic
\nindividuality is not to know himself; the true spiritual individual is not the
\nmind-ego, the life-ego, the body-ego: predominantly, this first movement is a
\nwork of will, of power, of egoistic self-effectuation and only secondarily of
\nknowledge. Therefore a time must come when man has to look below the obscure
\nsurface of his egoistic being and attempt to know himself; he must set out to
\nfind the real man: without <\/p>\n

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that he would be stopping short at Nature’s primary education and never go on to her deeper and larger teachings; however
\ngreat his practical knowledge and efficiency, he would be only a little higher than the animals. First, he has to turn his eyes
\nupon his own psychology and distinguish its natural elements,—ego, mind and its instruments, life, body,—until he discovers
\nthat his whole existence stands in need of an explanation other than the working of the natural elements and of a goal for its
\nactivities other than an egoistic self-affirmation and satisfaction. He may seek it in Nature and mankind and thus start on his
\nway to the discovery of his unity with the rest of his world: he may seek it in supernature, in God, and thus start on his way
\nto the discovery of his unity with the Divine. Practically, he attempts both paths and, continually wavering, continually seeks
\nto fix himself in the successive solutions that may be best in accordance with the various partial discoveries he has made on
\nhis double line of search and finding.<\/p>\n

     But through it all what he
\nis in this stage still insistently seeking to discover, to know, to
\nfulfil is himself; his knowledge
\nof Nature, his knowledge of God are only helps towards self-knowledge,
\ntowards the perfection of his being, towards the
\nattainment of the supreme object of his individual self-existence.
\nDirected towards Nature and the cosmos, it may take upon
\nitself the figure of self-knowledge, self-mastery,—in the mental and
\nvital sense,—and mastery of the world in which we find
\nourselves: directed towards God, it may take also this figure but in a
\nhigher spiritual sense of world and self, or it may
\nassume that other, so familiar and decisive to the religious mind, the
\nseeking for an individual salvation whether in heavens
\nbeyond or by a separate immergence in a supreme Self or a supreme
\nNon-self,—beatitude or Nirvana. Throughout,
\nhowever, it is the individual who is seeking individual self-knowledge
\nand the aim of his separate existence, with all the rest,
\neven altruism and the love and service of mankind, self-effacement or
\nself-annihilation, thrown in,—with whatever subtle
\ndisguises,—as helps and means towards that one great preoccupation of
\nhis realised individuality. This may seem to be only
\nan expanded egoism, and the separative ego would then be the truth of
\nman’s\n<\/p>\n

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\n

being persistent in him to the end or till at last
\nhe is liberated from it by his self-extinction in the featureless
\neternity of the
\nInfinite. But there is a deeper secret behind which justifies his
\nindividuality and its demand, the secret of the spiritual and
\neternal individual, the Purusha.
\nIt is because of the spiritual Person, the Divinity in the individual,
\nthat perfection or liberation,—salvation, as it is called
\nin the West,—has to be individual and not collective; for whatever
\nperfection of the collectivity is to be sought after, can
\ncome only by the perfection of the individuals who constitute it.<\/p>\n

      It is because the individual is That, that to find himself is his
\ngreat necessity. In his complete surrender and self-giving to the Supreme it is he who finds his perfect self-finding in a
\nperfect self-offering. In the abolition of the mental, vital, physical ego, even of the spiritual ego, it is the formless and
\nlimitless Individual that has the peace and joy of his escape into his own infinity. In the experience that he is nothing and no
\none, or everything and everyone, or the One which is beyond all things and absolute, it is the Brahman in the individual that
\neffectuates this stupendous merger or this marvellous joining, Yoga, of its eternal unit of being with its vast
\nall-comprehending or supreme all-transcending unity of eternal existence. To get beyond the ego is imperative, but one
\ncannot get beyond the self,—except by finding it supremely, universally. For the self is not the ego; it is one with the All and
\nthe One and in finding it it is the All and the One that we discover in our self: the contradiction, the separation disappears,
\nbut the self, the spiritual reality remains, united with the One and the All by that delivering disappearance.<\/p>\n

     The higher self-knowledge
\nbegins therefore as soon as man has got beyond his preoccupation with
\nthe relation of
\nNature and God to his superficial being, his most apparent self. One
\nstep is to know that this life is not all, to get at the
\nconception of his own temporal eternity, to realise, to become
\nconcretely aware of that subjective persistence which is
\ncalled the immortality of the soul. When he knows that there are states
\nbeyond the material and lives behind and before him,
\nat any rate a pre-existence and a subsequent existence, he is on the
\nway to get rid\n<\/p>\n

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of his temporal ignorance by enlarging himself
\nbeyond the immediate moments of Time into the possession of his own
\neternity. Another step forward is to learn that his surface waking
\nstate is only a small part of his being, to begin to fathom
\nthe abyss of the Inconscient and depths of the subconscient and
\nsubliminal and scale the heights of the superconscient; so
\nhe commences the removal of his psychological self-ignorance. A third
\nstep is to find out that there is something in him
\nother than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal
\never-developing individual soul that supports his nature
\nbut an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the
\ncategories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all
\nin him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link
\nbetween his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to
\nremove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit
\nhe discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self
\nbeyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic
\nconsciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and
\nthis world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the
\nAbsolute of whom self and the individual and the
\ncosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original
\nignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.
\nIn his attempt to cast his existence into the mould of this enlarging
\nself-knowledge his whole view and motive of life, thought
\nand action are progressively modified and transformed; his practical
\nignorance of himself, his nature and his object of
\nexistence diminishes: he has set his step on the path which leads out
\nof the falsehood and suffering of a limited and partial
\ninto the perfect possession and enjoyment of a true and complete
\nexistence.\n<\/p>\n

     In the course of this
\nprogress he discovers step by step the unity of the three categories
\nwith which he started. For,
\nfirst, he finds that in his manifest being he is one with cosmos and
\nNature; mind, life and body, the soul in the succession of
\nTime, the conscient, subconscient and superconscient,—these in their
\nvarious relations and the result of their relations are
\ncosmos and are Nature. But he finds too that in all which stands behind
\nthem or on which they are based, he is one with
\nGod; for the Absolute, the Spirit, the Self spaceless and timeless, the
\nSelf\n<\/p>\n

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\n

manifest in the cosmos and Lord of Nature,—all this
\nis what we mean by God, and in all this his own being goes back to
\nGod and derives from it; he is the Absolute, the Self, the Spirit
\nself-projected in a multiplicity of itself into cosmos and veiled
\nin Nature. In both of these realisations he finds his unity with all
\nother souls and beings,—relatively in Nature, since he is
\none with them in mind, vitality, matter, soul, every cosmic principle
\nand result, however various in energy and act of energy,
\ndisposition of principle and disposition of result, but absolutely in
\nGod, because the one Absolute, the one Self, the one Spirit
\nis ever the Self of all and the origin, possessor and enjoyer of their
\nmultitudinous diversities. The unity of God and Nature
\ncannot fail to manifest itself to him: for he finds in the end that it
\nis the Absolute who is all these relativities; he sees that it is
\nthe Spirit of whom every other principle is a manifestation; he
\ndiscovers that it is the Self who has become all these
\nbecomings; he feels that it is the Shakti or Power of being and
\nconsciousness of the Lord of all beings which is Nature and
\nis acting in the cosmos. Thus in the progress of our self-knowledge we
\narrive at that by the discovery of which all is known
\nas one with our self and by the possession of which all is possessed
\nand enjoyed in our own self-existence.\n<\/p>\n

     Equally, by virtue of this
\nunity, the knowledge of the universe must lead the mind of man to the
\nsame large revelation.
\nFor he cannot know Nature as Matter and Force and Life without being
\ndriven to scrutinise the relation of mental
\nconsciousness with these principles, and once he knows the real nature
\nof mind, he must go inevitably beyond every surface
\nappearance. He must discover the will and intelligence secret in the
\nworks of Force, operative in material and vital
\nphenomena; he must perceive it as one in the waking consciousness, the
\nsubconscient and the superconscient: he must find
\nthe soul in the body of the material universe. Pursuing Nature through
\nthese categories in which he recognises his unity with
\nthe rest of the cosmos, he finds a Supernature behind all that is
\napparent, a supreme power of the Spirit in Time and beyond
\nTime, in Space and beyond Space, a conscious Power of the Self who by
\nher becomes all becomings, of the Absolute who
\nby her manifests all
\nrela-<\/p>\n

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\n

tivities. He knows her, in other words, not only as material Energy, Life-Force, Mind-Energy, the many faces of Nature,
\nbut as the power of Knowledge-Will of the Divine Lord of being, the Consciousness-Force of the self-existent Eternal and
\nInfinite.<\/p>\n

     The quest of man for God,
\nwhich becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his
\nquests, begins with his
\nfirst vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both
\nin himself and her. Even if, as modern Science
\ninsists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship,
\nand the deification of natural forces, these first forms
\nonly embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the
\nsubconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences
\nand incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence
\nin what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind
\nthe visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing
\nitself in every working of energy. The obscurity and primitive
\ninadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or
\nthe truth of this great quest of the human heart and
\nmind, since all our seekings,—including Science itself,—must start from
\nan obscure and ignorant perception of hidden
\nrealities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth
\nwhich at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by
\nthe mists of the Ignorance. Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition
\nof the truth that man is what he is because God is
\nwhat He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even
\nin its incompleteness the most complete
\nmanifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in
\nman is imperfect. That he sees himself everywhere
\nand worships that as God is also true; but here too he has laid
\nconfusedly the groping hand of Ignorance on a truth,—that his
\nbeing and the Being are one, that this is a partial reflection of That,
\nand that to find his greater Self everywhere is to find
\nGod and to come near to the Reality in things, the Reality of all
\nexistence.\n<\/p>\n

     A unity behind diversity
\nand discord is the secret of the variety of human religions and
\nphilosophies; for they all get at
\nsome image or some side clue, touch some portion of the one Truth or
\nenvisage some one of its myriad aspects. Whether
\nthey\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-699 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

see dimly the material world as the body of the
\nDivine, or life as a great pulsation of the breath of Divine Existence,
\nor all
\nthings as thoughts of the cosmic Mind, or realise that there is a
\nSpirit which is greater than these things, their subtler and yet
\nmore wonderful source and creator,—whether they find God only in the
\nInconscient or as the one Conscious in inconscient
\nthings or as an ineffable superconscious Existence to reach whom we
\nmust leave behind our terrestrial being and annul the
\nmind, life and body, or, overcoming division, see that He is all these
\nat once and accept fearlessly the large consequences of
\nthat vision,—whether they worship Him with universality as the cosmic
\nBeing or limit Him and themselves, like the
\nPositivist, in humanity only or, on the contrary, carried away by the
\nvision of the timeless and spaceless Immutable, reject
\nHim in Nature and Cosmos,—whether they adore Him in various strange or
\nbeautiful or magnified forms of the human ego
\nor for His perfect possession of the qualities to which man aspires,
\nhis Divinity revealed to them as a supreme Power, Love,
\nBeauty, Truth, Righteousness, Wisdom,—whether they perceive Him as the
\nLord of Nature, Father and Creator, or as
\nNature herself and the universal Mother, pursue Him as the Lover and
\nattracter of souls or serve Him as the hidden Master
\nof all works, bow down before the one God or the manifold Deity, the
\none divine Man or the one Divine in all men or, more
\nlargely, discover the One whose presence enables us to become unified
\nin consciousness or in works or in life with all
\nbeings, unified with all things in Time and Space, unified with Nature
\nand her influences and even her inanimate
\nforces,—the truth behind must ever be the same because all is the one
\nDivine Infinite whom all are seeking. Because
\neverything is that One, there must be this endless variety in the human
\napproach to its possession; it was necessary that man
\nshould find God thus variously in order that he might come to know Him
\nentirely. But it is when knowledge reaches its
\nhighest aspects that it is possible to arrive at its greatest unity.
\nThe highest and widest seeing is the wisest; for then all
\nknowledge is unified in its one comprehensive meaning. All religions
\nare seen as approaches to a single Truth, all
\nphilosophies as divergent viewpoints looking at different sides of a
\nsingle Reality, all\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-700<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Sciences meet together in a supreme Science. For
\nthat which all our mind-knowledge and sense-knowledge and suprasensuous
\nvision is seeking, is found most integrally in the unity of God and man
\nand Nature and all that is in Nature.<\/p>\n

     
\nThe Brahman, the Absolute is the Spirit, the timeless Self, the Self
\npossessing Time, Lord of Nature, creator and
\ncontinent of the cosmos and immanent in all existences, the Soul from
\nwhom all souls derive and to whom they are
\ndrawn,—that is the truth of Being as man’s highest God-conception sees
\nit. The same Absolute revealed in all relativities,
\nthe Spirit who embodies Himself in cosmic Mind and Life and Matter and
\nof whom Nature is the self of energy so that all
\nshe seems to create is the Self and Spirit variously manifested in His
\nown being to His own conscious force for the delight
\nof His various existence,—this is the truth of being to which man’s
\nknowledge of Nature and cosmos is leading him and
\nwhich he will reach when his Nature-knowledge unites itself with his
\nGod-knowledge. This truth of the Absolute is the
\njustification of the cycles of the world; it is not their denial. It is
\nthe Self-Being that has become all these becomings; the Self
\nis the eternal unity of all these existences,—I am He. Cosmic energy is
\nnot other than the conscious force of that
\nSelf-existent: by that energy it takes through universal nature
\ninnumerable forms of itself; through its divine nature it can,
\nembracing the universal but transcendent of it, arrive in them at the
\nindividual possession of its complete existence, when its
\npresence and power are felt in one, in all and in the relations of one
\nwith all;—this is the truth of being to which man’s entire
\nknowledge of himself in God and in Nature rises and widens. A triune
\nknowledge, the complete knowledge of God, the
\ncomplete knowledge of himself, the complete knowledge of Nature, gives
\nhim his high goal; it assigns a vast and full sense
\nto the labour and effort of humanity. The conscious unity of the three,
\nGod, Soul and Nature, in his own consciousness is the
\nsure foundation of his perfection and his realisation of all harmonies:
\nthis will be his highest and widest state, his status of a divine
\nconsciousness and a divine life and its initiation the starting-point
\nfor his entire evolution of his self-knowledge, world-knowledge,
\nGod-knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nPage-701<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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