{"id":2132,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:39","slug":"19-life-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\/19-life-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","title":{"rendered":"-19_Life.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tChapter XIX
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tLife<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPranic energy is the life of creatures; for that is said to be the  universal principle of life.
\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tW<\/font>E PERCEIVE<\/b>, then, what Mind is in its divine origin
\nand how it is related to the Truth-consciousness, ―<\/font>Mind, the highest of the three lower principles which
\nconstitute our human existence. It is a special action of the divine consciousness, or rather it is the final strand of its whole
\ncreative action. It enables the Purusha to hold apart the relations of different forms and forces of himself to each other; it creates
\nphenomenal differences which to the individual soul fallen from the Truth-consciousness take the appearance of radical divisions,
\nand is by that original perversion the parent of all the resultant perversions which impress us as the contrary dualities and oppositions proper to the life of the Soul in the Ignorance. But so long as it is not separated from the Supermind, it supports,
\nnot perversions and falsehoods, but the various working of the universal Truth.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMind thus appears as a creative cosmic agency. This is not the impression which we normally have of our mentality; rather
\nwe regard it primarily as a perceptive organ, perceptive of things already created by Force working in Matter, and the only origination we allow to it is a secondary creation of new combined forms from those already developed by Force in Matter. But
\nthe knowledge we are now recovering, aided by the last discoveries of Science, begins to show us that in this Force and
\nin this Matter there is a subconscious Mind at work which is certainly responsible for its own emergence, first in the forms
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t1<\/sup>
\nII. 3.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 185<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tof life and secondly in the forms of mind itself, first in the
\nnervous consciousness of plant-life and the primitive animal, secondly in the ever-developing mentality of the evolved animal
\nand of man. And as we have already discovered that Matter is only substance-form of Force, so we shall discover that material
\nForce is only energy-form of Mind. Material force is, in fact, a subconscious operation of Will; Will that works in us in what
\nseems to be light, though it is in truth no more than a half-light, and material Force that works in what to us seems to be
\na darkness of unintelligence, are yet really and in essence the same, as materialistic thought has always instinctively felt from
\nthe wrong or lower end of things and as spiritual knowledge working from the summit had long ago discovered. We may say,
\ntherefore, that it is a subconscious Mind or Intelligence which, manifesting Force as its driving-power, its executive Nature, its Prakriti, has created this material world.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut since, as we have now found, Mind is no independent
\nand original entity but only a final operation of the Truth-consciousness or Supermind, therefore wherever Mind is, there
\nSupermind must be. Supermind or the Truth-consciousness is the real creative
\n\t\t\tagency of the universal Existence. Even when Mind is in its own
\n\t\t\tdarkened consciousness separated from its source, yet is that larger
\n\t\t\tmovement always there in the workings of Mind; forcing them to
\n\t\t\tpreserve their right relation, evolving from them the inevitable
\n\t\t\tresults they bear in themselves, producing the right tree from the
\n\t\t\tright seed, it compels even the operations of so brute, inert and
\n\t\t\tdarkened a thing as material Force to result in a world of Law, of
\n\t\t\torder, of right relation and not, as it would otherwise be, of
\n\t\t\thurtling chance and chaos. Obviously, this order and right relation can only be relative and not the supreme order and supreme right which would reign if Mind
\nwere not in its own consciousness separated from Supermind; it is an arrangement, an order of the results right and proper
\nto the action of dividing Mind and its creation of separative oppositions, its dual contrary sides of the one Truth. The Divine
\nConsciousness, having conceived and thrown into operation the Idea of this dual or divided representation of Itself, deduces<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 186<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tfrom it in real-idea and educes practically from it in substance
\nof life, by the governing action of the whole Truth-consciousness behind it, its own inferior truth or inevitable result of various
\nrelation. For this is the nature of Law or Truth in the world that it is the just working and bringing out of that which is contained
\nin being, implied in the essence and nature of the thing itself,
\nlatent in its self-being and self-law,
\nsvabhā<\/font>va
\n<\/i>and
\nsvadharma<\/i>, as seen by the divine Knowledge. To use one of those wonderful
\nformulas of the Upanishad2<\/sup>
\nwhich<\/span> contain a world of knowledge in a few revealing words, it is the Self-existent who as the seer
\nand thinker becoming everywhere has arranged in Himself all things rightly from years eternal according to the truth of that
\nwhich they are. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tConsequently, the triple world that we live in, the world of
\nMind-Life-Body, is triple only in its actual accomplished evolution. Life involved in Matter has emerged in the form of thinking
\nand mentally conscious life. But with Mind, involved in it and therefore in Life and Matter, is the Supermind, which is the origin
\nand ruler of the other three, and this also must emerge. We seek for an intelligence at the root of the world, because intelligence is
\nthe highest principle of which we are aware and that which seems to us to govern and explain all our own action and creation and,
\ntherefore, if there is a Consciousness at all in the universe, we presume that it must be an Intelligence, a mental Consciousness.
\nBut intelligence only perceives, reflects and uses within the measure of its capacity the work of a Truth of being superior to
\nitself; the power behind that works must therefore be another and superior form of Consciousness proper to that Truth. We
\nhave, accordingly, to mend our conception and affirm that not a subconscious Mind or Intelligence, but an involved Supermind,
\nwhich puts Mind in front of it as the immediately active special form of its knowledge-will subconscious in Force and uses
\nmaterial Force or Will subconscious in substance of being as its executive Nature or Prakriti, has created this material universe.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t2<\/sup>
\nKavir manī<\/font>sī<\/font> paribhū<\/font>h<\/font> svayambhū<\/font>r yā<\/font>thā<\/font>tathyato’rthā<\/font>n vyadadhā<\/font>t śā<\/font>ś<\/font>vatī<\/font>bhyah<\/font><\/i>
\n
\nsamā<\/font>bhyah<\/font>
\n<\/i>―<\/font>Isha Upanishad<\/i>, Verse 8.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 187<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tBut we see that here Mind is manifested in a specialisation
\nof Force to which we give the name of Life. What then is Life? and what relation has it to Supermind, to this supreme trinity of
\nSachchidananda active in creation by means of the Real-Idea or Truth-consciousness? From what principle in the Trinity does it
\ntake its birth? or by what necessity, divine or undivine, of the Truth or the
\n\t\t\tillusion, does it come into being? Life is an evil, rings down the
\n\t\t\tcenturies the ancient cry, a delusion, a delirium, an insanity from
\n\t\t\twhich we have to flee into the repose of eternal being. Is it so?
\n\t\t\tand why then is it so? Why has the Eternal wantonly inflicted this evil, brought this delirium or insanity upon
\nHimself or else upon the creatures brought into being by His terrible all-deluding Maya? Or is it rather some divine principle
\nthat thus expresses itself, some power of the Delight of eternal being that had to express and has thus thrown itself into Time
\nand Space in this constant outburst of the million and million forms of life which people the countless worlds of the universe?
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form
\nof the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force
\nwhich builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of
\ndisintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and
\nlife is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>which, deceived by appearances,
\n\t\t\tit is constantly bringing into the universal unity. Death has no
\n\t\t\treality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and
\n\t\t\trenewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of
\nlife; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even
\nin the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for
\nother forms of life. Similarly we may be sure, in the uniform law of Nature, that if there is in the bodily form a mental or psychic<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 188<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tenergy, that also is not destroyed but only breaks out from one
\nform to assume others by some process of metempsychosis or new ensouling of body. All renews itself, nothing perishes.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>the material aspect being
\nonly its outermost movement ―<\/font>that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even
\nif the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new
\nuniverse in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably
\ngo on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it
\nis Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that
\nsupport their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes
\nform of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and
\nmentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt will be said, however, that this is not what we mean by life; we mean a particular result of universal force with which
\nwe are familiar and which manifests itself only in the animal and the plant, but not in the metal, the stone, the gas, operates
\nin the animal cell but not in the pure physical atom. We must, therefore, in order to be sure of our ground, examine in what
\nprecisely consists this particular result of the play of Force which we call life and how it differs from that other result of the play
\nof Force in inanimate things which, we say, is not life. We see at once that there are here on earth three realms of the play of
\nForce, the animal kingdom of the old classification to which we belong, the vegetable, and lastly the mere material void, as we
\npretend, of life. How does life in ourselves differ from the life of the plant, and the life of the plant from the not-life, say, of the
\nmetal, the mineral kingdom of the old phraseology, or that new chemical kingdom which Science has discovered?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 189<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tOrdinarily, when we speak of life, we have meant animal life, that
\n\t\t\twhich moves, breathes, eats, feels, desires, and, if we speak of the
\n\t\t\tlife of plants, it has been almost as a metaphor rather than a
\n\t\t\treality, for plant life was regarded as a purely material process rather than a biological phenomenon. Especially
\nwe have associated life with breathing; the breath is life, it was said in every language, and the formula is true if we change our
\nconception of what we mean by the Breath of Life. But it is evident that spontaneous motion or locomotion, breathing, eating
\nare only processes of life and not life itself; they are means for the generation or release of that constantly stimulating energy
\nwhich is our vitality and for that process of disintegration and renewal by which it supports our substantial existence; but these
\nprocesses of our vitality can be maintained in other ways than by our respiration and our means of sustenance. It is a proved fact
\nthat even human life can remain in the body and can remain in full consciousness when breathing and the beating of the heart
\nand other conditions formerly deemed essential to it have been temporarily suspended. And new evidence of phenomena has
\nbeen brought forward to establish that the plant, to which we can still deny any conscious reaction, has at least a physical
\nlife identical with our own and even organised essentially like our own though different in its apparent organisation. If that
\nis proved true, we still have to make a clean sweep of our old facile and false conceptions and get beyond symptoms and
\nexternalities to the root of the matter. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn some recent discoveries3<\/sup>
\nwhich, if their conclusions are
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t3<\/font><\/sup> These considerations drawn from recent scientific researches are brought in here as illustrative, not probative of the nature and process of Life in Matter as they are developed here. Science and metaphysics (whether founded on pure intellectual speculation or, as in India, ultimately on a spiritual vision of things and spiritual experience) have
\neach its own province and method of inquiry. Science cannot dictate its conclusions to metaphysics any more than metaphysics can impose its conclusions on Science. Still if
\nwe accept the reasonable belief that Being and Nature in all their states have a system of correspondences expressive of a common Truth underlying them, it is permissible
\nto suppose that truths of the physical universe can throw some light on the nature as well as the process of the Force that is active in the universe
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>not a complete light, for
\nphysical Science is necessarily incomplete in the range of its inquiry and has no clue to the occult movements of the Force.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 190<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\taccepted, must throw an intense light on the problem of Life
\nin Matter, a great Indian physicist has pointed attention to the response to stimulus as an infallible sign of the existence of
\nlife. It is especially the phenomenon of plant-life that has been illumined by his data and illustrated in all its subtle functionings;
\nbut we must not forget that in the essential point the same proof of vitality, the response to stimulus, the positive state of life and
\nits negative state which we call death, have been affirmed by him in metals as in the plant. Not indeed with the same abundance,
\nnot indeed so as to show an essentially identical organisation of life; but it is possible that, could instruments of the right nature
\nand sufficient delicacy be invented, more points of similarity between the metal and plant life could be discovered; and even
\nif it prove not to be so, this might mean that the same or any life organisation is absent, but the beginnings of vitality could still
\nbe there. But if life, however rudimentary in its symptoms, exists in the metal, it must be admitted as present, involved perhaps
\nor elementary and elemental in the earth or other material existences akin to the metal. If we can pursue our inquiries
\nfarther, not obliged to stop short where our immediate means of investigation fail us, we may be sure from our unvarying
\nexperience of Nature that investigations thus pursued will in the end prove to us that there is no break, no rigid line of
\ndemarcation between the earth and the metal formed in it or between the metal and the plant and, pursuing the synthesis
\nfarther, that there is none either between the elements and atoms that constitute the earth or metal and the metal or earth
\nthat they constitute. Each step of this graded existence prepares the next, holds in itself what appears in that which follows it.
\nLife is everywhere, secret or manifest, organised or elemental, involved or evolved, but universal, all-pervading, imperishable;
\nonly its forms and organisings differ. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe must remember that the physical response to stimulus
\nis only an outward sign of life, even as are breathing and locomotion in ourselves. An exceptional stimulus is applied by the
\nexperimenter and vivid responses are given which we can at once recognise as indices of vitality in the object of the experiment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 191<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tBut during its whole existence the plant is responding constantly
\nto a constant mass of stimulation from its environment; that is to say, there is a constantly maintained force in it which is capable
\nof responding to the application of force from its surroundings. It is said that the idea of a vital force in the plant or other living
\norganism has been destroyed by these experiments. But when we say that a stimulus has been applied to the plant, we mean that an
\nenergised force, a force in dynamic movement has been directed on that object, and when we say that a response is given, we
\nmean that an energised force capable of dynamic movement and of sensitive vibration answers to the shock. There is a vibrant
\nreception and reply, as well as a will to grow and be, indicative of a submental, a vital-physical organisation of consciousness-force
\nhidden in the form of being. The fact would seem to be, then, that as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the
\nuniverse which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal
\nor metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena
\nwhich we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises
\n\t\t\titself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy
\n\t\t\tare different dynamisms of one World-Force. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven when a form appears to us to be dead, this force still exists
\n\t\t\tin it in potentiality although its familiar operations of vitality are suspended and about to be permanently ended. Within certain limits that which is dead can be revived; the habitual
\noperations, the response, the circulation of active energy can be restored; and this proves that what we call life was still there
\nin the body, latent, that is to say, not active in its usual habits, its habits of ordinary physical functioning, its habits of nervous
\nplay and response, its habits in the animal of conscious mental response. It is difficult to suppose that there is a distinct entity
\ncalled life which has gone entirely out of the body and gets into it again when it feels
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>how, since there is nothing to connect
\nit with the body? ―<\/font>that somebody is stimulating the form. In certain cases, such as catalepsy, we see that the outward physical<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 192<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tsigns and operations of life are suspended, but the mentality is
\nthere self-possessed and conscious although unable to compel the usual physical responses. Certainly, it is not the fact that the
\nman is physically dead but mentally alive or that life has gone out of the body while mind still inhabits it, but only that the ordinary
\nphysical functioning is suspended, while the mental is still active. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo also, in certain forms of trance, both the physical functionings and the outward mental are suspended, but afterwards resume their operation, in some cases by external stimulation,
\nbut more normally by a spontaneous return to activity from within. What has really happened is that the surface mind-force
\nhas been withdrawn into subconscious mind and the surface life-force into subactive life and either the whole man has lapsed into
\nthe subconscious existence or else he has withdrawn his outer life into the subconscious while his inner being has been lifted
\ninto the superconscient. But the main point for us at present is that the Force, whatever it be, that maintains dynamic energy of
\nlife in the body, has indeed suspended its outer operations, but still informs the organised substance. A point comes, however, at
\nwhich it is no longer possible to restore the suspended activities; and this occurs when either such a lesion has been inflicted
\non the body as makes it useless or incapable of the habitual functionings or, in the absence of such lesion, when the process
\nof disintegration has begun, that is to say, when the Force that should renew the life-action becomes entirely inert to the pressure of the environing forces with whose mass of stimulation it was wont to keep up a constant interchange. Even then there is
\nLife in the body, but a Life that is busy only with the process of disintegrating the formed substance so that it may escape in
\nits elements and constitute with them new forms. The Will in the universal force that held the form together, now withdraws
\nfrom constitution and supports instead a process of dispersion. Not till then is there the real death of the body.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLife then is the dynamic play of a universal Force, a Force in which mental consciousness and nervous vitality are in some
\nform or at least in their principle always inherent and therefore they appear and organise themselves in our world in the forms<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 193<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tof Matter. The life-play of this Force manifests itself as an interchange of stimulation and response to stimulation between the different forms it has built up and in which it keeps up its
\nconstant dynamic pulsation; each form is constantly taking into itself and giving out again the breath and energy of the common
\nForce; each form feeds upon that and nourishes itself with it by various means, whether indirectly by taking in other forms in
\nwhich the energy is stored or directly by absorbing the dynamic discharges it receives from outside. All this is the play of Life;
\nbut it is chiefly recognisable to us where the organisation of it is sufficient for us to perceive its more outward and complex
\nmovements and especially where it partakes of the nervous type of vital energy which belongs to our own organisation. It is for
\nthis reason that we are ready enough to admit life in the plant because obvious phenomena of life are there,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>and this becomes still easier if it can be shown that it manifests symptoms of nervosity and has a vital system not very different from our own,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>but are unwilling to recognise
\n\t\t\tit in the metal and the earth and the chemical atom where these
\n\t\t\tphenomenal developments can with difficulty be detected or do not
\n\t\t\tapparently at all exist. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs there any justification for elevating this distinction into an
\n\t\t\tessential difference? What, for instance, is the difference between
\n\t\t\tlife in ourselves and life in the plant? We see that they differ,
\n\t\t\tfirst, in our possession of the power of locomotion which has
\n\t\t\tevidently nothing to do with the essence of vitality, and, secondly, in our possession of conscious sensation which is, so far as we know, not yet evolved in the plant. Our nervous responses
\nare largely, though by no means always or in their entirety, attended with the mental response of conscious sensation; they
\nhave a value to the mind as well as to the nerve system and the body agitated by the nervous action. In the plant it would seem
\nthat there are symptoms of nervous sensation, including those which would be in us rendered as pleasure and pain, waking
\nand sleep, exhilaration, dullness and fatigue, and the body is inwardly agitated by the nervous action, but there is no sign of
\nthe actual presence of mentally conscious sensation. But sensation is sensation whether mentally conscious or vitally sensitive,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 194<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tand sensation is a form of consciousness. When the sensitive
\nplant shrinks from a contact, it appears that it is nervously affected, that something in it dislikes the contact and tries to
\ndraw away from it; there is, in a word, a subconscious sensation in the plant, just as there are, as we have seen, subconscious
\noperations of the same kind in ourselves. In the human system it is quite possible to bring these subconscious perceptions and
\nsensations to the surface long after they have happened and have ceased to affect the nervous system; and an ever-increasing mass
\nof evidence has irrefutably established the existence of a subconscious mentality in us much vaster than the conscious. The
\nmere fact that the plant has no superficially vigilant mind which can be awakened to the valuation of its subconscious sensations,
\nmakes no difference to the essential identity of the phenomena. The phenomena being the same, the thing they manifest must
\nbe the same, and that thing is a subconscious mind. And it is quite possible that there is a more rudimentary life operation
\nof the subconscious sense-mind in the metal, although in the metal there is no bodily agitation corresponding to the nervous
\nresponse; but the absence of bodily agitation makes no essential difference to the presence of vitality in the metal any more than
\nthe absence of bodily locomotion makes an essential difference to the presence of vitality in the plant.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat happens when the conscious becomes subconscious in the body or the subconscious becomes conscious? The real
\ndifference lies in the absorption of the conscious energy in part of its work, its more or less exclusive concentration. In certain
\nforms of concentration, what we call the mentality, that is to say, the Prajnana or apprehensive consciousness almost or quite
\nceases to act consciously, yet the work of the body and the nerves and the sense-mind goes on unnoticed but constant and perfect;
\nit has all become subconscious and only in one activity or chain of activities is the mind luminously active. While I write, the
\nphysical act of writing is largely or sometimes entirely done by the subconscious mind; the body makes, unconsciously as we
\nsay, certain nervous movements; the mind is awake only to the thought with which it is occupied. The whole man indeed may<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 195<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tsink into the subconscious, yet habitual movements implying the
\naction of mind may continue, as in many phenomena of sleep; or he may rise into the superconscient and yet be active with the subliminal mind in the body, as in certain phenomena of
\nsamā<\/font>dhi<\/i>
\nor Yoga trance. It is evident, then, that the difference between plant sensation and our sensation is simply that in the plant the
\nconscious Force manifesting itself in the universe has not yet fully emerged from the sleep of Matter, from the absorption which
\nentirely divides the worker Force from its source of work in the superconscient knowledge, and therefore does subconsciously
\nwhat it will do consciously when it emerges in man from its absorption and begins to wake, though still indirectly, to its
\nknowledge-self. It does exactly the same things, but in a different way and with a different value in terms of consciousness.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is becoming possible now to conceive that in the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire, there is
\nan attraction and repulsion which, though phenomenally other, are essentially the same thing as liking and disliking in ourselves,
\nbut are, as we say, inconscient or subconscient. This essence of will and desire are evident everywhere in Nature and, though
\nthis is not yet sufficiently envisaged, they are associated with and indeed the expression of a subconscient or, if you will, inconscient or quite involved sense and intelligence which are equally pervasive. Present in every atom of Matter all this is necessarily
\npresent in every thing which is formed by the aggregation of those atoms; and they are present in the atom because they are
\npresent in the Force which builds up and constitutes the atom. That Force is fundamentally the Chit-Tapas or Chit-Shakti of
\nthe Vedanta, consciousness-force, inherent conscious force of conscious-being, which manifests itself as nervous energy full of
\nsubmental sensation in the plant, as desire-sense and desire-will in the primary animal forms, as self-conscious sense and force in
\nthe developing animal, as mental will and knowledge topping all the rest in man. Life is a scale of the universal Energy in which
\nthe transition from inconscience to consciousness is managed; it is an intermediary power of it latent or submerged in Matter,
\ndelivered by its own force into submental being, delivered finally<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 196<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tby the emergence of Mind into the full possibility of its dynamis.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tApart from all other considerations, this conclusion imposes itself as a logical necessity if we observe even the surface process
\nof the emergence in the light of the evolutionary theme. It is self-evident that Life in the plant, even if otherwise organised
\nthan in the animal, is yet the same power, marked by birth and growth and death, propagation by the seed, death by decay or
\nmalady or violence, maintenance by indrawing of nourishing elements from without, dependence on light and heat, productiveness and sterility, even states of sleep and waking, energy and depression of life-dynamism, passage from infancy to maturity
\nand age; the plant contains, moreover, the essences of the force of life and is therefore the natural food of animal existences.
\nIf it is conceded that it has a nervous system and reactions to stimuli, a beginning or undercurrent of submental or purely
\nvital sensations, the identity becomes closer; but still it remains evidently a stage of life evolution intermediate between animal
\nexistence and “inanimate” Matter. This is precisely what must be expected if Life is a force evolving out of Matter and culminating
\nin Mind, and, if it is that, then we are bound to suppose that it is already there in Matter itself submerged or latent in the
\nmaterial subconsciousness or inconscience. For from where else can it emerge? Evolution of Life in matter supposes a previous
\ninvolution of it there, unless we suppose it to be a new creation magically and unaccountably introduced into Nature. If it is
\nthat, it must either be a creation out of nothing or a result of material operations which is not accounted for by anything in
\nthe operations themselves or by any element in them which is of a kindred nature; or, conceivably, it may be a descent from above,
\nfrom some supraphysical plane above the material universe. The two first suppositions can be dismissed as arbitrary conceptions;
\nthe last explanation is possible and it is quite conceivable and in the occult view of things true that a pressure from some plane of
\nLife above the material universe has assisted the emergence of life here. But this does not exclude the origin of life from Matter
\nitself as a primary and necessary movement; for the existence of a Life-world or Life-plane above the material does not of itself<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 197<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tlead to the emergence of Life in matter unless that Life-plane
\nexists as a formative stage in a descent of Being through several grades or powers of itself into the Inconscience with the result of
\nan involution of itself with all these powers in Matter for a later evolution and emergence. Whether signs of this submerged life
\nare discoverable, unorganised yet or rudimentary, in material things or there are no such signs, because this involved Life
\nis in a full sleep, is not a question of capital importance. The material Energy that aggregates, forms and disaggregates4<\/sup> is the
\nsame Power in another grade of itself as that Life-Energy which expresses itself in birth, growth and death, just as by its doing
\nof the works of Intelligence in a somnambulist subconscience it betrays itself as the same Power that in yet another grade attains
\nthe status of Mind; its very character shows that it contains in itself, though not yet in their characteristic organisation or
\nprocess, the yet undelivered powers of Mind and Life. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLife then reveals itself as essentially the same everywhere
\nfrom the atom to man, the atom containing the subconscious stuff and movement of being which are released into consciousness
\n\t\t\tin the animal, with plant life as a midway stage in the evolution.
\n\t\t\tLife is really a universal operation of Conscious-Force acting
\n\t\t\tsubconsciously on and in Matter; it is the operation that creates,
\n\t\t\tmaintains, destroys and re-creates forms or bodies and attempts by
\n\t\t\tplay of nerve-force, that is to say, by currents of interchange of
\n\t\t\tstimulating energy to awake conscious sensation in those bodies. In
\n\t\t\tthis operation there are three stages; the lowest is that in which
\n\t\t\tthe vibration is still in the sleep of Matter, entirely subconscious
\n\t\t\tso as to seem wholly mechanical; the middle stage is that in which it becomes capable of a response still
\nsubmental but on the verge of what we know as consciousness; <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t4<\/sup>
\nBirth,<\/span> growth and death of life are in their outward aspect the same process of
\naggregation, formation and disaggregation, though more than that in their inner process and significance. Even the ensoulment of the body by the psychic being follows, if the
\noccult view of these things is correct, a similar outward process, for the soul as nucleus draws to itself for birth and aggregates the elements of its mental, vital and physical
\nsheaths and their contents, increases these formations in life, and in its departing drops and disaggregates again these aggregates, drawing back into itself its inner powers, till
\nin rebirth it repeats the original process.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 198<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe highest is that in which life develops conscious mentality
\nin the form of a mentally perceptible sensation which in this transition becomes the basis for the development of sense-mind
\nand intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of Life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it
\nis the same in all the stages and always a middle term between Mind and Matter, constituent of the latter and instinct with the
\nformer. It is an operation of Conscious-Force which is neither the mere formation of substance nor the operation of mind with
\nsubstance and form as its object of apprehension; it is rather an energising of conscious being which is a cause and support
\nof the formation of substance and an intermediate source and support of conscious mental apprehension. Life, as this intermediate energising of conscious being, liberates into sensitive action and reaction a form of the creative force of existence
\nwhich was working subconsciently or inconsciently, absorbed in its own substance; it supports and liberates into action the
\napprehensive consciousness of existence called mind and gives it a dynamic instrumentation so that it can work not only on its
\nown forms but on forms of life and matter; it connects, too, and supports, as a middle term between them, the mutual commerce
\nof the two, mind and matter. This means of commerce Life provides in the continual currents of her pulsating nerve-energy
\nwhich carry force of the form as a sensation to modify Mind and bring back force of Mind as will to modify Matter. It is
\ntherefore this nerve-energy which we usually mean when we talk of Life; it is the Prana or Life-force of the Indian system.
\nBut nerve-energy is only the form it takes in the animal being; the same Pranic energy is present in all forms down to the atom,
\nsince everywhere it is the same in essence and everywhere it is the same operation of Conscious-Force,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>Force supporting
\nand modifying the substantial existence of its own forms, Force with sense and mind secretly active but at first involved in the
\nform and preparing to emerge, then finally emerging from their involution. This is the whole significance of the omnipresent Life
\nthat has manifested and inhabits the material universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 199<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XIX   Life   Pranic energy is the life of creatures; for that is said to be the  universal principle of life. Taittiriya Upanishad.1…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21-22-the-life-divine","wpcat-45-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","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=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}