{"id":3628,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3628"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","slug":"35-the-vision-of-the-world-spirit-the-double-aspect-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn\/35-the-vision-of-the-world-spirit-the-double-aspect-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-35_The Vision of the World-spirit – The Double Aspect.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nTHE VISION OF THE WORLD-SPIRIT * <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE DOUBLE ASPECT <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nE<\/font>VEN WHILE
\n<\/font>the effects of the terrible aspect of this vision are still
\nupon him, the first words uttered by Arjuna after the Godhead has
\nspoken are eloquent of a greater uplifting and reassuring reality behind this face of death and this destruction. "Rightly and in good
\nplace," he cries, "0 Krishna, does the world rejoice and take pleasure
\nin thy name, the Rakshasas are fleeing from thee in terror to all the
\nquarters and the companies of the Siddhas bow down before thee in
\nadoration. How should they not do thee homage, 0 great Spirit? For
\nthou art the original Creator and Doer of works and greater even than
\ncreative Brahma. 0 thou Infinite, 0 thou Lord of the gods, 0 thou
\nabode of the universe, thou art the Immutable and thou art what is
\nand is not and thou art that which is the Supreme. Thou art the ancient Soul and the first and original Godhead and the supreme restingplace of this All; thou art the knower and that which is to be known
\nand the highest status; 0 infinite in form, by thee was extended the
\nuniverse. Thou art Yama and Vayu and Agni and Soma and Varuna
\nand Prajapati, father of creatures, and the great-grandsire. Salutation
\nto thee a thousand times over and again and yet again salutation, in
\nfront and behind and from every side, for thou art each and all that
\nis. Infinite in might and immeasurable in strength of action thou
\npervadest all and art every one." <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut this supreme universal Being has lived here before him the
\nhuman face, in the mortal body, the divine Man, the embodied
\nGodhead, the Avatar, and till now he has not known him. He has
\nseen the humanity only and has treated the Divine as a mere human
\ncreature. He has. not pierced through the earthly mask to the Godhead
\nof which the humanity was a vessel and a symbol, and he prays now for that Godhead’s forgiveness of his unseeing carelessness and his
\nnegligent ignorance. "For whatsoever I have spoken to thee in rash <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Gita, XI. 35-55. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-345<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nvehemence, thinking of thee only as my human friend and companion, ‘0 Krishna, 0 Yadave, 0 comrade,’ not knowing this thy greatness, in negligent error or in love, and for whatsoever disrespect was
\nshown by me to thee in jest, on the couch and the seat and in the banquet, alone or in thy presence, I pray forgiveness from thee the immeasurable. Thou art the father of all this world of the moving and
\nunmoving; thou art one to be worshipped and the most solemn object
\nof veneration. None is equal to thee, how then another greater in all
\nthe three worlds, 0 incomparable in might? Therefore I bow down before thee and prostrate my body and I demand grace of thee the adorable Lord. As a father to his son, as a friend to his friend and comrade,
\nas one dear with him he loves, so shouldst thou, 0 Godhead, bear
\nwith me. I have seen what never was seen before and I rejoice, but
\nmy mind is troubled with fear. 0 Godhead, show me that other form
\nof thine. I would see thee even as before crowned and with thy mace
\nand discus. Assume thy four-armed shape, 0 thousand-armed, 0
\nForm universal." <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFrom the first words there comes the suggestion that the hidden
\ntruth behind these terrifying forms is a reassuring, a heartening and
\ndelightful truth. There is something that makes the heart of the world
\nto rejoice and take pleasure in the name and nearness of the Divine.
\nIt is the profound sense of that which makes us see in the dark face
\nof Kali the face of the Mother and to perceive even in the midst or
\ndestruction the protecting arms of the Friend of creatures, in the midst
\nof evil the presence of a pure unalterable Benignity and in the midst
\nof death the Master of Immortality. From the terror of the King of
\n<\/i>the divine action of the Rakshasas, the fierce giant powers of darkness,
\nflee destroyed, defeated and overpowered. But the Siddhas, but the
\ncomplete and perfect who know and sing the names of the Immortal
\nand live in the truth of his being, bow down before every form of
\nHim and know what every form enshrines and signifies. Nothing has
\nreal need to fear except that which is to be destroyed, the evil, the
\nignorance, the veilers in Night, the Rakshasa powers. All the movement and action of Rudra the Terrible is towards perfection and
\ndivine light and completeness. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor this Spirit, this Divine is only in outward form the Destroyer,
\nTime who undoes all these finite forms: but in himself he is the Infinite, the Master of the cosmic Godheads, in whom the world and
\nall its action are securely seated. He is the original and ever originating <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-346<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nCreator, one greater than that figure of creative Power called
\nBrahma which he shows to us in the form of things as one aspect of
\nhis trinity, creation chequered by a balance of preservation and destruction. The real divine creation is eternal; it is the Infinite manifested sempiternally in finite things, the Spirit who conceals and
\nreveals himself for ever in his innumerable infinity of souls and in
\nthe wonder of their actions and in the beauty of their forms. He is the
\neternal Immutable; he is the dual appearance of the Is and Is not, of
\nthe manifest and the never manifested, of things that were and seem
\nto be no more, are and appear doomed to perish, shall be and shall
\npass. But what he is beyond all these is That, the Supreme, who holds
\nall things mutable in the single eternity of a Time to which all is ever
\npresent. He possesses his immutable self in a timeless eternity of
\nwhich Time and creation are an ever extending figure. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis is the Truth of him in which all is reconciled; a harmony of simultaneous and interdependent truths start from and amount to
\nthe one that is real. It is the truth of a supreme Soul of whose supreme
\nnature the world is a derivation and an inferior figure of that Infinite; of the Ancient of Days who for ever presides over the long evolutions
\nof Time; of the original Godhead of whom Gods and men and all
\nliving creatures are the children, the powers, the souls, spiritually
\njustified in their being by his truth of existence; of the Knower who
\ndevelops in man the knowledge of himself and world and God; of the
\none object of all knowing who reveals himself to man’s heart and
\nmind and soul, so that every new opening form of our knowledge is
\na partial unfolding of him up to the highest by which he is intimately, profoundly and integrally seen and discovered. This is the
\nhigh supreme Stability who originates and supports and receives to
\nhimself all that are in the universe. By him in his own existence the
\nworld is extended, by his omnipotent power, by his miraculous self-conception and energy and Ananda of never-ending creation. All is
\nan infinity of his material and spiritual forms. He is all the many gods
\nfrom the least to the greatest, he is the father of creatures and all are
\nhis children and his people. He is the origin of Brahma, the father
\nto the first father of the divine creators of these different races of living things. On this truth there is a constant insistence. Again it is
\nrepeated that he is the All, he is each and every one, sarvah.<\/i> He is
\nthe infinite Universal and he is each individual and everything that
\nis, the one Force and Being in every one of us, the infinite Energy <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-347<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat throws itself out in these multitudes, the immeasurable Will
\nand mighty Power of motion and action that forms out of itself all the
\ncourses of Time and all the happenings of the spirit in Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd from that insistence the thought naturally turns to the presence of this one great Godhead in man. There the soul of the seer of
\nthe vision is impressed by three successive suggestions. First, it is
\nborne in upon him that in the body of this son of Man who moved
\nbeside him as a transient creature upon earth and sat by his side and
\nlay with him on the same couch and ate with him in the banquet
\nand was the object of jest and careless word, actor in war and council
\nand common things, in this figure of mortal man was all the time
\nsomething great, concealed, of tremendous significance, a Godhead,
\nan Avatar, a universal Power, a One Reality, a supreme Transcendence. To this occult divinity in which all the significance of man and
\nhis long race is wrapped and from which all world-existence receives
\nits inner meaning of ineffable greatness, he had been blind. Now
\nonly he sees the universal Spirit in the individual frame, the Divine
\nembodied in humanity, the transcendent Inhabitant of this symbol
\nof Nature. He has seen now only this tremendous, infinite, immeasurable Reality of all these apparent things, this boundless universal Form which so exceeds every individual form and yet of
\nwhom each individual thing is a house for his dwelling. For that great
\nReality is equal and infinite and the same in the individual and in
\nthe universe. And at first his blindness, his treatment of this Divine
\nas the mere outward man, his seeing of only the mental and physical relation seems to him a sin against the Mightiness that was
\nthere. For the being whom he called Krishna, Yadava, comrade, was
\nthis immeasurable Greatness, this incomparable Might, this Spirit
\none in all of whom all are the creations. That and not the veiling outward humanity, avajānan mānusīm tanum
\nāśritam,<\/i> was what he
\nshould have seen with awe and with submission and veneration. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut the second suggestion is that what was figured in the human
\nmanifestation and the human relation is also a reality which accompanies and mitigates for our mind the tremendous character of the
\nuniversal vision. The transcendence and cosmic aspect have to be
\nseen, for without that seeing the limitations of humanity cannot
\nbe exceeded. In that unifying oneness all has to be included. But
\nby itself that would set too great a gulf between the transcendent spirit and this soul bound and circumscribed in an inferior <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-348<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nNature. The infinite presence in its unmitigated splendour would be too overwhelming for the separate littleness of the limited,
\nindividual and natural man. A link is needed by which he can see
\nthis universal Godhead in his own individual and natural being,
\nclose to him, not only omnipotently there to govern all he is by universal and immeasurable Power, but humanly figured to support and
\nraise him to unity by an intimate individual relation. The adoration by which the finite creature bows down before the Infinite, receives
\nall its sweetness and draws near to a closest truth of companionship
\nand oneness when it deepens into the more intimate adoration which
\nlives in the sense of the fatherhood of God, the friendhood of God,
\nthe attracting love between the Divine Spirit and our human soul and
\nnature. For the Divine inhabits the human soul and body; he draws
\naround him and wears like .a robe the human mind and figure. He
\nassumes the human relations which the soul affects in the mortal
\nbody and they find in God their own fullest sense and greatest
\nrealisation. This is the Vaishnava bhakti of which the seed is here in
\nthe Gita’s words, but which received afterwards a more deep, ecstatic
\nand significant extension. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd from this second suggestion a third immediately arises. The
\nform of the transcendent and universal Being is to the strength of
\nthe liberated spirit a thing mighty, encouraging and fortifying,
\na source of power, an equalising, sublimating, all-justifying vision; but to the normal man it is overwhelming, appalling, incommunicable. The truth that reassures, even when known, is grasped with
\ndifficulty behind the formidable and mighty aspect of all-destructive
\nTime and an incalculable Will and a vast immeasurable inextricable
\nworking. But there is too the gracious mediating form of divine Narayana, the God who is so close to man and in man, the Charioteer of
\nthe battle and the journey, with his four arms of helpful power,
\na humanised symbol of Godhead, not this million-armed universality.
\nIt is this mediating aspect which man must have for his support
\nconstantly before him. For it is this figure of Narayana which symbolises the truth that reassures. It makes close, visible, living, seizable
\nthe vast spiritual joy in which for the inner spirit and life of man the
\nuniversal workings behind all their stupendous circling, retrogression, progression sovereignly culminate, their marvellous and auspicious upshot. To this humanised embodied soul their end becomes
\nhere a union, a closeness, a constant companionship of man and God, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-349<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nman living in the world for God, God dwelling in man and turning
\nto his own divine ends in him the enigmatic world-process. And beyond the end is a yet more wonderful oneness and inliving in the
\nlast transfigurations of the Eternal. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Godhead in answer to Arjuna’s prayer reassumes his own
\nnormal Narayana image, svakam rūpam,<\/i> the desired form of grace
\nand love and sweetness and beauty. But first he declares the incalculable significance of the other mighty Image which he is about to
\nveil. "This that thou now seest," he tells him, "is my supreme shape,
\nmy form of luminous energy, the universal, the original which none
\nbut thou amongst men has yet seen. I have shown it by my self-Yoga.
\nFor it is an image of my very Self and Spirit, it is the very Supreme
\nself-figured in cosmic existence and the soul in perfect Yoga with Me
\nsees it without any trembling of the nervous parts or any bewilderment and confusion of the mind, because he descries not only what
\nis terrible and overwhelming in its appearance, but also its high and
\nreassuring significance. And thou also shouldst so envisage it without
\nfear, without confusion of mind, without any sinking of the members; but since the lower nature in thee is not yet prepared to look upon
\nit with that high strength and tranquillity, I will reassume again for
\nthee my Narayana figure in which the human mind sees isolated
\nand toned to its humanity the calm, helpfulness and delight of a
\nfriendly Godhead. The greater Form"\u2014and this is repeated again
\nafter it has disappeared\u2014" is only for the rare highest souls. The gods
\nthemselves ever desire to look upon it. It cannot be won by Veda or
\nausterities or gifts or sacrifice, it can be seen, known, entered into
\nonly by that bhakti which regards, adores and loves Me alone in all
\nthings." <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut what then is the uniqueness of this Form by which it is lifted
\nso far beyond cognizance that all the ordinary endeavour of human
\nknowledge and even the inmost austerity of its spiritual effort are
\ninsufficient, unaided, to reach the vision? It is this that man can
\nknow by other means this or that exclusive aspect of the one existence, its individual, cosmic or world-excluding figures, but not
\nthis greatest reconciling Oneness of all the aspects of the Divinity in
\nwhich at one and the same time and in one and the same vision all
\nis manifested, all is exceeded and all is consummated. For here transcendent, universal and individual Godhead, Spirit and Nature,
\nInfinite and finite, space and time and timelessness. Being and Be<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-350<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ncoming, all that we can strive to think and know of the Godhead,
\nwhether of the absolute or the manifested existence, are wonderfully
\nrevealed in an ineffable oneness. This vision can be reached only by the
\nabsolute adoration, the love, the intimate unity that crowns at their
\nsummit the fullness of works and knowledge. To know, to see, to enter
\ninto it, to be one with this supreme form of the Supreme becomes
\nthen possible, and it is that end which the Gita proposes for its Yoga.
\nThere is a supreme consciousness through which it is possible to enter into the glory of the Transcendent and contain in him the immutable Self and all mutable Becoming,\u2014it is possible to be one
\nwith all, yet above all, to exceed world and yet embrace the whole
\nnature at once of the cosmic and the supracosmic Godhead. This is
\ndifficult indeed for limited man imprisoned in his mind and body: but, says the Godhead, " be a doer of my works, accept Me as the supreme being and object, become my bhakta, be free from attachment
\nand without enmity to all existences; for such a man comes to Me."
\nIn other words superiority to the lower nature, unity with all creatures, oneness with the cosmic Godhead and the Transcendence,
\noneness of will with the Divine in works, absolute love for the One
\nand for God in all,\u2014this is the way to that absolute spiritual self-exceeding and that unimaginable transformation. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-351<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XI   THE VISION OF THE WORLD-SPIRIT * THE DOUBLE ASPECT   EVEN WHILE the effects of the terrible aspect of this vision are still…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","wpcat-90-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628","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=3628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}