{"id":2105,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2105"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:29","slug":"10-conscious-force-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/21-22-the-life-divine\/10-conscious-force-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","title":{"rendered":"-10_Conscious Force.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nChapter X
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nConscious Force <\/font>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThey beheld the self-force of the Divine Being deep hidden by
\nits own conscious modes of working. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/i>1
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is he that is awake in those who sleep.
\n\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n

\nKatha Upanishad.<\/i>2
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nA<\/font>LL PHENOMENAL<\/b> existence resolves itself into Force,
\ninto a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own experience. In the ancient images by which human thought attempted to make this origin and law
\nof being intelligible and real to itself, this infinite existence of Force was figured as a sea, initially at rest and therefore free from
\nforms, but the first disturbance, the first initiation of movement necessitates the creation of forms and is the seed of a universe.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMatter is the presentation of force which is most easily intelligible to our intelligence, moulded as it is by contacts in
\nMatter to which a mind involved in material brain gives the response. The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of
\nthe old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to
\nus by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some
\nobstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of
\nforce upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> I. 3.                   
\n2<\/sup>
\nII. 2. 8.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 87<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nstatus assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of
\nwhich the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not
\nas yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the
\nprimitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then,
\nwe can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state
\ncharacterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and
\nrepulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of
\ncohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nAll forms of Matter of which we are aware, all physical things even to the most
\nsubtle, are built up by the combination of these five elements. Upon them also
\ndepends all our sensible experience; for by reception of vibration comes the sense of sound;
\nby contact of things in a world of vibrations of Force the sense of touch; by the action of light in the forms hatched, outlined,
\nsustained by the force of light and fire and heat the sense of sight; by the fourth element the sense of taste; by the fifth the sense of
\nsmell. All is essentially response to vibratory contacts between force and force. In this way the ancient thinkers bridged the gulf
\nbetween pure Force and its final modifications and satisfied the difficulty which prevents the ordinary human mind from understanding how all these forms which are to his senses so real, solid and durable can be in truth only temporary phenomena and a
\nthing like pure energy, to the senses non-existent, intangible and almost incredible, can be the one permanent cosmic reality.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe problem of consciousness is not solved by this theory; for it does not explain how the contact of vibrations of Force
\nshould give rise to conscious sensations. The Sankhyas or analytic thinkers posited therefore behind these five elements two
\nprinciples which they called Mahat and Ahankara, principles which are really non-material; for the first is nothing but the vast
\ncosmic principle of Force and the other the divisional principle of Ego-formation. Nevertheless, these two principles, as also the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 88<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nprinciple of intelligence, become active in consciousness not by virtue of Force
\nitself, but by virtue of an inactive Conscious-Soul or souls in which its
\nactivities are reflected and by that reflection assume the hue of consciousness.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nSuch is the explanation of things offered by the school of Indian philosophy
\nwhich comes nearest to the modern materialistic ideas and which carried the idea of a mechanical or
\nunconscious Force in Nature as far as was possible to a seriously reflective Indian mind. Whatever its defects, its main idea was
\nso indisputable that it came to be generally accepted. However the phenomenon of consciousness may be explained, whether
\nNature be an inert impulse or a conscious principle, it is certainly Force; the principle of things is a formative movement of
\nenergies, all forms are born of meeting and mutual adaptation between unshaped forces, all sensation and action is a response
\nof something in a form of Force to the contacts of other forms of Force. This is the world as we experience it and from this
\nexperience we must always start.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nPhysical analysis of Matter by modern Science has come
\nto the same general conclusion, even if a few last doubts still linger. Intuition and experience confirm this concord of Science
\nand Philosophy. Pure reason finds in it the satisfaction of its own essential conceptions. For even in the view of the world
\nas essentially an act of consciousness, an act is implied and in the act movement of Force, play of Energy. This also, when
\nwe examine from within our own experience, proves to be the fundamental nature of the world. All our activities are the play of
\nthe triple force of the old philosophies, knowledge-force, desire-force, action-force, and all these prove to be really three streams
\nof one original and identical Power, Adya Shakti. Even our states of rest are only equable state or equilibrium of the play of her
\nmovement. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMovement of Force being admitted as the whole nature
\nof the Cosmos, two questions arise. And first, how did this movement come to take place at all in the bosom of existence?
\nIf we suppose it to be not only eternal but the very essence of all existence, the question does not arise. But we have negatived<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 89<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthis theory. We are aware of an existence which is not compelled
\nby the movement. How then does this movement alien to its eternal repose come to take place in it? by what cause? by what
\npossibility? by what mysterious impulsion?
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe answer most approved by the ancient Indian mind was
\nthat Force is inherent in Existence. Shiva and Kali, Brahman and Shakti are one and not two who are separable. Force inherent in
\nexistence may be at rest or it may be in motion, but when it is at rest, it exists none the less and is not abolished, diminished or in
\nany way essentially altered. This reply is so entirely rational and in accordance with the nature of things that we need not hesitate
\nto accept it. For it is impossible, because contradictory of reason, to suppose that Force is a thing alien to the one and infinite
\nexistence and entered into it from outside or was non-existent and arose in it at some point in Time. Even the Illusionist theory
\nmust admit that Maya, the power of self-illusion in Brahman, is potentially eternal in eternal Being and then the sole question
\nis its manifestation or non-manifestation. The Sankhya also asserts the eternal coexistence of Prakriti and Purusha, Nature and
\nConscious-Soul, and the alternative states of rest or equilibrium of Prakriti and movement or disturbance of equilibrium.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut since Force is thus inherent in existence and it is the nature of Force to have this double or alternative potentiality
\nof rest and movement, that is to say, of self-concentration in Force and self-diffusion in Force, the question of the how of
\nthe movement, its possibility, initiating impulsion or impelling cause does not arise. For we can easily, then, conceive that this
\npotentiality must translate itself either as an alternative rhythm of rest and movement succeeding each other in Time or else as
\nan eternal self-concentration of Force in immutable existence with a superficial play of movement, change and formation like
\nthe rising and falling of waves on the surface of the ocean. And this superficial play
\n―<\/font>we are necessarily speaking in inadequate
\nimages ―<\/font>may be either coeval with the self-concentration and itself also eternal or it may begin and end in Time and be resumed
\nby a sort of constant rhythm; it is then not eternal in continuity but eternal in recurrence.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 90<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe problem of the how thus eliminated, there presents
\nitself the question of the why. Why should this possibility of a play of movement of Force translate itself at all? why should
\nnot Force of existence remain eternally concentrated in itself, infinite, free from all variation and formation? This question
\nalso does not arise if we assume Existence to be non-conscious and consciousness only a development of material energy which
\nwe wrongly suppose to be immaterial. For then we can say simply that this rhythm is the nature of Force in existence and
\nthere is absolutely no reason to seek for a why, a cause, an initial motive or a final purpose for that which is in its nature
\neternally self-existent. We cannot put that question to eternal self-existence and ask it either why it exists or how it came into
\nexistence; neither can we put it to self-force of existence and its inherent nature of impulsion to movement. All that we can then
\ninquire into is its manner of self-manifestation, its principles of movement and formation, its process of evolution. Both Existence and Force being inert,
\n―<\/font>inert status and inert impulsion,
\n―<\/font>both of them unconscious and unintelligent, there cannot be
\nany purpose or final goal in evolution or any original cause or intention.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut if we suppose or find Existence to be conscious Being, the problem arises. We may indeed suppose a conscious Being
\nwhich is subject to its nature of Force, compelled by it and without option as to whether it shall manifest in the universe
\nor remain unmanifest. Such is the cosmic God of the Tantriks and the Mayavadins who is subject to Shakti or Maya, Purusha
\ninvolved in Maya or controlled by Shakti. But it is obvious that such a God is not the supreme infinite Existence with which we
\nhave started. Admittedly, it is only a formulation of Brahman in the cosmos by the Brahman which is itself logically anterior to
\nShakti or Maya and takes her back into its transcendental being when she ceases from her works. In a conscious existence which
\nis absolute, independent of its formations, not determined by its works, we must suppose an inherent freedom to manifest or not
\nto manifest the potentiality of movement. A Brahman compelled by Prakriti is not Brahman, but an inert Infinite with an active<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 91<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ncontent in it more powerful than the continent, a conscious
\nholder of Force of whom his Force is master. If we say that it is compelled by itself as Force, by its own nature, we do not get
\nrid of the contradiction, the evasion of our first postulate. We have got back to an Existence which is really nothing but Force,
\nForce at rest or in movement, absolute Force perhaps, but not absolute Being.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is then necessary to examine into the relation between Force and Consciousness. But what do we mean by the latter
\nterm? Ordinarily we mean by it our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being
\nduring the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order
\nof the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness,
\nthough it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking.
\nFor we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon,
\nin all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were
\nright when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from
\nour entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there
\nis a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no
\nman has yet measured or fathomed. This knowledge gives us a starting-point for the true science of Force and its workings; it
\ndelivers us definitely from circumscription by the material and from the illusion of the obvious.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMaterialism indeed insists that, whatever the extension of consciousness, it is a material phenomenon inseparable from
\nour physical organs and not their utiliser but their result. This orthodox contention, however, is no longer able to hold the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 92<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfield against the tide of increasing knowledge. Its explanations
\nare becoming more and more inadequate and strained. It is becoming always clearer that not only does the capacity of our
\ntotal consciousness far exceed that of our organs, the senses, the nerves, the brain, but that even for our ordinary thought and
\nconsciousness these organs are only their habitual instruments and not their generators. Consciousness uses the brain which
\nits upward strivings have produced, brain has not produced nor does it use the consciousness. There are even abnormal instances
\nwhich go to prove that our organs are not entirely indispensable instruments,
\n―<\/font>that the heart-beats are not absolutely essential
\nto life, any more than is breathing, nor the organised brain-cells to thought. Our physical organism no more causes or explains
\nthought and consciousness than the construction of an engine causes or explains the motive-power of steam or electricity. The
\nforce is anterior, not the physical instrument.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMomentous logical consequences follow. In the first place
\nwe may ask whether, since even mental consciousness exists where we see inanimation and inertia, it is not possible that
\neven in material objects a universal subconscient mind is present although unable to act or communicate itself to its surfaces for
\nwant of organs. Is the material state an emptiness of consciousness, or is it not rather only a sleep of consciousness
\n―<\/font>even though from the point of view of
\nevolution an original and not an intermediate sleep? And by sleep the human
\nexample teaches us that we mean not a suspension of consciousness, but its
\ngathering inward away from conscious physical response to the impacts of
\nexternal things. And is not this what all existence is that has not yet
\ndeveloped means of outward communication with the external physical world? Is there not a Conscious Soul, a Purusha who wakes for ever even in all that
\nsleeps?
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nWe may go farther. When we speak of subconscious mind,
\nwe should mean by the phrase a thing not different from the outer mentality, but only acting below the surface, unknown
\nto the waking man, in the same sense if perhaps with a deeper plunge and a larger scope. But the phenomena of the subliminal<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 93<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nself far exceed the limits of any such definition. It
\nincludes an action not only immensely superior in capacity, but quite different
\nin kind from what we know as mentality in our waking self. We have therefore a
\nright to suppose that there is a superconscient in us as well as a subconscient, a range of conscious
\nfaculties and therefore an organisation of consciousness which rise high above that psychological stratum to which we give
\nthe name of mentality. And since the subliminal self in us thus rises in superconscience above mentality, may it not also sink in
\nsubconscience below mentality? Are there not in us and in the world forms of consciousness which are submental,
\nto which we can give the name of vital and physical consciousness? If so, we
\nmust suppose in the plant and the metal also a force to which we can give the
\nname of consciousness although it is not the human or animal mentality for which
\nwe have hitherto preserved the monopoly of that description.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nNot only is this
\nprobable but, if we will consider things dispassionately, it is certain. In
\nourselves there is such a vital consciousness which acts in the cells of the body and the automatic
\nvital functions so that we go through purposeful movements and obey attractions and repulsions to which our mind is a
\nstranger. In animals this vital consciousness is an even more important factor. In plants it is intuitively evident. The seekings
\nand shrinkings of the plant, its pleasure and pain, its sleep and its wakefulness and all that strange life whose truth an Indian
\nscientist has brought to light by rigidly scientific methods, are all movements of consciousness, but, as far as we can see, not
\nof mentality. There is then a sub-mental, a vital consciousness which has precisely the same initial reactions as the mental,
\nbut is different in the constitution of its self-experience, even as that which is superconscient is in the constitution of its
\nself-experience different from the mental being. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nDoes the range of what we can call consciousness cease with
\nthe plant, with that in which we recognise the existence of a sub-animal life? If so, we must then suppose that there is a force
\nof life and consciousness originally alien to Matter which has yet entered into and occupied Matter,
\n―<\/font>perhaps from another<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 94<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nworld.3<\/sup> For whence, otherwise, can it have come? The ancient
\nthinkers believed in the existence of such other worlds, which perhaps sustain life and consciousness in ours or even call it out
\nby their pressure, but do not create it by their entry. Nothing can evolve out of Matter which is not therein already contained.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut there is no reason to suppose that the gamut of life and consciousness fails and stops short in that which seems
\nto us purely material. The development of recent research and thought seems to point to a sort of obscure beginning of life
\nand perhaps a sort of inert or suppressed consciousness in the metal and in the earth and in other “inanimate” forms, or at
\nleast the first stuff of what becomes consciousness in us may be there. Only while in the plant we can dimly recognise
\nand conceive the thing that I have called vital consciousness, the consciousness
\nof Matter, of the inert form, is difficult indeed for us to understand or
\nimagine, and what we find it difficult to understand or imagine we consider it
\nour right to deny. Nevertheless, when one has pursued consciousness so far into the depths, it becomes incredible that there should be this sudden
\ngulf in Nature. Thought has a right to suppose a unity where that unity is confessed by all other classes of phenomena and
\nin one class only, not denied, but merely more concealed than in others. And if we suppose the unity to be unbroken, we then
\narrive at the existence of consciousness in all forms of the Force which is at work in the world. Even if there be no conscient or
\nsuperconscient Purusha inhabiting all forms, yet is there in those forms a conscious force of being of which even their outer parts
\novertly or inertly partake.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nNecessarily, in such a view, the word consciousness changes
\nits meaning. It is no longer synonymous with mentality but indicates a self-aware force of existence of which mentality is
\na middle term; below mentality it sinks into vital and material movements which are for us subconscient; above, it rises into
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n3<\/sup> The curious speculation is now current that Life entered earth not from another world, but from another planet. To the thinker that would explain nothing. The essential
\nquestion is how Life comes into Matter at all and not how it enters into the matter of a particular planet.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 95<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe supramental which is for us the superconscient. But in all
\nit is one and the same thing organising itself differently. This is, once more,
\nthe Indian conception of Chit which, as energy, creates the worlds. Essentially,
\nwe arrive at that unity which materialistic Science perceives from the other end
\nwhen it asserts that Mind cannot be another force than Matter, but must be merely development and outcome of material energy. Indian
\nthought at its deepest affirms on the other hand that Mind and Matter are rather different grades of the same energy, different
\norganisations of one conscious Force of Existence.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut what right have we to assume consciousness as the just
\ndescription for this Force? For consciousness implies some kind of intelligence, purposefulness, self-knowledge, even though
\nthey may not take the forms habitual to our mentality. Even from this point of view everything supports rather than contradicts
\nthe idea of a universal conscious Force. We see, for instance, in the animal, operations of a perfect purposefulness and an exact,
\nindeed a scientifically minute knowledge which are quite beyond the capacities of the animal mentality and which man himself
\ncan only acquire by long culture and education and even then uses with a much less sure rapidity. We are entitled to see in this
\ngeneral fact the proof of a conscious Force at work in the animal and the insect which is more intelligent, more purposeful, more
\naware of its intention, its ends, its means, its conditions than the highest mentality yet manifested in any individual form on
\nearth. And in the operations of inanimate Nature we find the same pervading characteristic of a supreme hidden intelligence,
\n“hidden in the modes of its own workings”.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe only argument against a conscious and intelligent
\nsource for this purposeful work, this work of intelligence, of selection, adaptation and seeking is that large element in Nature’s
\noperations to which we give the name of waste. But obviously this is an objection based on the limitations of our human
\nintellect which seeks to impose its own particular rationality, good enough for limited human ends, on the general operations
\nof the World-Force. We see only part of Nature’s purpose and all that does not subserve that part we call waste. Yet even our<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 96<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nown human action is full of an apparent waste, so appearing
\nfrom the individual point of view, which yet, we may be sure, subserves well enough the large and universal purpose of things.
\nThat part of her intention which we can detect, Nature gets done surely enough in spite of, perhaps really by virtue of her
\napparent waste. We may well trust to her in the rest which we do not yet detect.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nFor the rest, it is impossible to ignore the drive of set purpose, the guidance of apparent blind tendency, the sure eventual
\nor immediate coming to the target sought, which characterise the operations of World-Force in the animal, in the plant, in
\ninanimate things. So long as Matter was Alpha and Omega to the scientific mind, the reluctance to admit intelligence as the mother
\nof intelligence was an honest scruple. But now it is no more than an outworn paradox to affirm the emergence of human
\nconsciousness, intelligence and mastery out of an unintelligent, blindly driving unconsciousness in which no form or substance
\nof them previously existed. Man’s consciousness can be nothing else than a form of Nature’s consciousness. It is there in other
\ninvolved forms below Mind, it emerges in Mind, it shall ascend into yet superior forms beyond Mind. For the Force that builds
\nthe worlds is a conscious Force, the Existence which manifests itself in them is conscious Being and a perfect emergence of its
\npotentialities in form is the sole object which we can rationally conceive for its manifestation of this world of forms.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 97<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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