{"id":623,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:18","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=623"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:18","slug":"28-the-sevenfold-chord-of-being-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/18-the-life-divine-volume-18\/28-the-sevenfold-chord-of-being-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-28_The Sevenfold Chord of Being .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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

<\/font> XXVII<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\tThe Sevenfold Chord of Being<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\nIn
\nthe ignorance of my mind, I ask of these steps of the Gods that are set within.
\nThe all-knowing Gods have taken the Infant of a year and they have woven about
\nhim seven threads to make this weft. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tRig Veda.<\/font>\u00b9
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n


\n
\n            <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

   
\n\t\tW<\/font><\/b>E HAVE<\/font> <\/font>now, by
\n\t\tour scrutiny of the seven great terms of existence which the ancient
\n\t\tseers fixed on as the foundation and sevenfold mode of all cosmic
\n\t\texistence, discerned the gradations of evolution and involution and
\n\t\tarrived at the basis of knowledge towards which we were striving. We
\n\t\thave laid down that the origin, the continent, the initial and the
\n\t\tultimate reality of all that is in the cosmos is the triune principle of
\n\t\ttranscendent and infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss which is
\n\t\tthe nature of divine being. Consciousness has two aspects, illuminating
\n\t\tand effective, state and power of self-awareness and state and power of
\n\t\tself-force, by which Being possesses itself whether in its static
\n\t\tcondition or in its dynamic movement; for in its creative action it
\n\t\tknows by omnipotent self-consciousness all that is latent within it and
\n\t\tproduces and governs the universe of its potentialities by an omniscient
\n\t\tself-energy. This creative action of the All-Existent has its nodus in
\n\t\tthe fourth, the intermediate principle of Supermind or Real-Idea, in
\n\t\twhich a divine Knowledge one with self-existence and self-awareness and
\n\t\ta substantial Will which is in perfect unison with that knowledge,
\n\t\tbecause it is itself in its substance and nature that self-conscious
\n\t\tself-existence dynamic in illumined action, develop infallibly the
\n\t\tmovement and form and law of things in right accordance with their
\n\t\tself-existent Truth and in harmony with the significances of its
\n\t\tmanifestation.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nThe creation depends on and moves between the biune principle of unity and
\nmultiplicity; it is a manifoldness of idea and force and form which is the
\nexpression of an original unity, and it\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

      
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nI. 164. 5.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage- 262<\/p>\n

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

\n

is
\nan eternal oneness which is the foundation and reality of the multiple worlds
\nand makes their play possible. Supermind therefore proceeds by a double faculty
\nof comprehensive and apprehensive knowledge; proceeding from the essential
\noneness to the resultant multiplicity, it comprehends all things in itself as
\nitself the One in its manifold aspects and it apprehends separately all things
\nin itself as objects of its will and knowledge. While to its original
\nself-awareness all things are one being, one consciousness, one will, one
\nself-delight and the whole movement of things a movement one and indivisible, it
\nproceeds in its action from the unity to the multiplicity and from multiplicity
\nto unity, creating an ordered relation between them and an appearance but not a
\nbinding reality of division, a subtle unseparating division, or rather a
\ndemarcation and determination within the indivisible. The Supermind is the
\ndivine Gnosis which creates, governs and upholds the worlds: it is the secret
\nWisdom which upholds both our Knowledge and our Ignorance.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nWe have discovered also that Mind, Life and Matter are a triple aspect of these
\nhigher principles working, so far as our universe is concerned, in subjection to
\nthe principle of Ignorance, to the superficial and apparent self-forgetfulness
\nof the One in its play of division and multiplicity. Really, these three are
\nonly subordinate powers of the divine quaternary: Mind is a subordinate power of
\nSupermind which takes its stand in the standpoint of division, actually
\nforgetful here of the oneness behind though able to return to it by
\nreillumination from the supramental; Life is similarly a subordinate power of
\nthe energy aspect of Sachchidananda, it is Force working out form and the play
\nof conscious energy from the standpoint of division created by Mind; Matter is
\nthe form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda assumes
\nwhen it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and
\nforce.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nIn addition, there is a fourth principle which comes into manifestation at the
\nnodus of mind, life and body, that which we call the soul; but this has a double
\nappearance, in front the desire-soul which strives for the possession and
\ndelight of things, and, behind and either largely or entirely concealed by the
\ndesire-soul, the true psychic entity which is the real repository of the\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-263<\/p>\n

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

\n

\nexperiences of the spirit. And we have concluded that this fourth human
\nprinciple is a projection and an action of the third divine principle of
\ninfinite Bliss, but an action in the terms of our consciousness and under the
\nconditions of soul-evolution in this world. As the existence of the Divine is in
\nits nature an infinite consciousness and the self-power of that consciousness,
\nso the nature of its infinite consciousness is pure and infinite Bliss;
\nself-possession and self-awareness are the essence of its self-delight. The
\ncosmos also is a play of this divine self-delight and the delight of that play
\nis entirely possessed by the Universal; but in the individual owing to the
\naction of ignorance and division it is held back in the subliminal and the
\nsuperconscient being; on our surface it lacks and has to be sought for, found
\nand possessed by the development of the individual consciousness towards
\nuniversality and transcendence.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nWe may, therefore, if we will, pose eight\u00b9
\n<\/font>principles instead of seven, and then we perceive that our existence is a
\nsort of refraction of the divine existence, in inverted order of ascent and
\ndescent, thus ranged,\u2014 <\/p>\n

        
\nExistence                                  
\nMatter\n<\/p>\n

        
\nConsciousness-Force                 
\nLife\n<\/p>\n

        
\nBliss                                           
\nPsyche\n<\/p>\n

         
\nSupermind                                  Mind.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nThe Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force
\nand Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from
\nMatter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of
\nSupermind towards the divine being. The knot of the two, the higher and the
\nlower hemisphere,\u00b2<\/font><\/p>\n

is where mind and Supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of the
\nveil is the condition of the divine life in humanity; for by that rending, by
\nthe illumining descent of the higher into the nature of the lower being and the
\nforceful ascent of the lower being into the nature of the higher, mind can
\nrecover its divine light in the all-comprehending Supermind, the soul realise
\nits divine self in the all-possessing all-blissful Ananda, life repossess its
\ndivine power in the play of\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nThe Vedic Seers speak of the seven Rays, but also of eight, nine, ten or twelve.<\/p>\n

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

     
\n\u00b2<\/font> Parā<\/font>rdha<\/i> and
\nAparā<\/font>dha.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage- 264<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nomnipotent Conscious-Force and Matter open to its divine liberty as a form of
\nthe divine Existence. And if there be any goal to the evolution which finds here
\nits present crown and head in the human being, other than an aimless circling
\nand an individual escape from the circling, if the infinite potentiality of this
\ncreature, who alone here stands between Spirit and Matter with the power to
\nmediate between them, has any meaning other than an ultimate awakening from the
\ndelusion of life by despair and disgust of the cosmic effort and its complete
\nrejection, then even such a luminous and puissant transfiguration and emergence
\nof the Divine in the creature must be that high-uplifted goal and that supreme
\nsignificance.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nBut before we can turn to the psychological and practical conditions under which
\nsuch a transfiguration may be changed from an essential possibility into a
\ndynamic potentiality, we have much to consider; for we must discern not only the
\nessential principles of the descent of Sachchidananda into cosmic existence,
\nwhich we have already done, but the large plan of its order here and the nature
\nand action of the manifested power of Conscious-Force which reigns over the
\nconditions under which we now exist. At present, what we have first to see is
\nthat the seven or the eight principles we have examined are essential to all
\ncosmic creation and are there, manifested or as yet unmanifested, in ourselves,
\nin this \u201cInfant of a year\u201d which we still are,\u2014for we are far yet from being the
\nadults of evolutionary Nature. The higher Trinity is the source and basis of all
\nexistence and play of existence, and all cosmos must be an expression and action
\nof its essential reality. No universe can be merely a form of being which has
\nsprung up and outlined itself in an absolute nullity and void and remains
\nstanding out against a non-existent emptiness. It must be either a figure of
\nexistence within the infinite Existence who is beyond all figure or it must be
\nitself the All-Existence. In fact, when we unify our self with cosmic being, we
\nsee that it is really both of these things at once; that is to say, it is the
\nAll-Existent figuring Himself out in an infinite series of rhythms in His own
\nconceptive extension of Himself as Time and Space. Moreover we see that this
\ncosmic action or any cosmic action is impossible without the play of an infinite
\nForce of<\/p>\n

\n  Page-265<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nExistence which produces and regulates all these forms and movements; and that
\nForce equally presupposes or is the action of an infinite Consciousness, because
\nit is in its nature a cosmic Will determining all relations and apprehending
\nthem by its own mode of awareness, and it could not so determine and apprehend
\nthem if there were no comprehensive Consciousness behind that mode of cosmic
\nawareness to originate as well as to hold, fix and reflect through it the
\nrelations of Being in the developing formation or becoming of itself which we
\ncall a universe.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nFinally, Consciousness being thus omniscient and omnipotent, in entire luminous
\npossession of itself, and such entire luminous possession being necessarily and
\nin its very nature Bliss, for it cannot be anything else, a vast universal
\nself-delight must be the cause, essence and object of cosmic existence. \u201cIf
\nthere were not,\u201d says the ancient seer, \u201cthis all-encompassing ether of Delight
\nof existence in which we dwell, if that delight were not our ether, then none
\ncould breathe, none could live.\u201d This self-bliss may become subconscient,
\nseemingly lost on the surface, but not only must it be there at our roots, all
\nexistence must be essentially a seeking and reaching out to discover and possess
\nit, and in proportion as the creature in the cosmos finds himself, whether in
\nwill and power or in light and knowledge or in being and wideness or in love and
\njoy itself, he must awaken to something of the secret ecstasy. Joy of being,
\ndelight of realisation by knowledge, rapture of possession by will and power or
\ncreative force, ecstasy of union in love and joy are the highest terms of
\nexpanding life because they are the essence of existence itself in its hidden
\nroots as on its yet unseen heights. Wherever, then, cosmic existence manifests
\nitself, these three must be behind and within it.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nBut infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss need not throw themselves out
\ninto apparent being at all or, doing so, it would not be cosmic being, but
\nsimply an infinity of figures without fixed order or relation, if they did not
\nhold or develop and bring out from themselves this fourth term of Supermind, of
\nthe divine Gnosis. There must be in every cosmos a power of Knowledge and Will
\nwhich out of infinite potentiality fixes determined relations, develops the
\nresult out of the seed, rolls\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-266<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nout the mighty rhythms of cosmic Law and views and governs the worlds as their
\nimmortal and infinite Seer and Ruler.\u00b9
\n<\/font>This power indeed is nothing else than Sachchidananda Himself; it creates
\nnothing which is not in its own self-existence, and for that reason all cosmic
\nand real Law is a thing not imposed from outside, but from within, all
\ndevelopment is self-development, all seed and result are seed of a Truth of
\nthings and result of that seed determined out of its potentialities. For the
\nsame reason no Law is absolute, because only the infinite is absolute, and
\neverything contains within itself endless potentialities quite beyond its
\ndetermined form and course, which are only determined through a self-limitation
\nby Idea proceeding from an infinite liberty within. This power of
\nself-limitation is necessarily inherent in the boundless All-Existent. The
\nInfinite would not be the Infinite if it could not assume a manifold finiteness;
\nthe Absolute would not be the Absolute if it were denied in knowledge and power
\nand will and manifestation of being a boundless capacity of self-determination.
\nThis Supermind then is the Truth or Real-Idea, inherent in all cosmic force and
\nexistence, which is necessary, itself remaining infinite, to determine and
\ncombine and uphold relation and order and the great lines of the manifestation.
\nIn the language of the Vedic Rishis, as infinite Existence, Consciousness and
\nBliss are the three highest and hidden Names of the Nameless, so this Supermind
\nis the fourth Name\u00b2<\/font><\/p>\n

\u2014fourth to That in its descent, fourth to us in our ascension. <\/p>\n

   
\n\t\tBut Mind, Life and Matter, the lower trilogy, are also indispensable to
\n\t\tall cosmic being, not necessarily in the form or with the action and
\n\t\tconditions which we know upon earth or in this material universe, but in
\n\t\tsome kind of action, however luminous, however puissant, however subtle.
\n\t\tFor Mind is essentially that faculty of Supermind which measures and
\n\t\tlimits, which fixes a particular centre and views from that the cosmic
\n\t\tmovement and its interactions. Granted that in a particular world,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nThe Seer, the Thinker, He who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent.\u2014Isha
\nUpanishad. <\/i>8<\/font>. <\/p>\n

    
\n\u00b2<\/font>
\nTurī<\/font>yam svid, <\/i>\u201ca certain Fourth\u201d,
\nalso called
\nturī<\/font>yam dhā<\/font>ma,<\/i>
\nthe fourth placing or poise of existence.<\/p>\n

\n Page-267<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nplane or cosmic arrangement, mind need not be limited, or rather that the being
\nwho uses mind as a subordinate faculty need not be incapable of seeing things
\nfrom other centres or standpoints or even from the real Centre of all or in the
\nvastness of a universal self-diffusion, still if he is not capable of fixing
\nhimself normally in his own firm standpoint for certain purposes of the divine
\nactivity, if there is only the universal self-diffusion or only infinite centres
\nwithout some determining or freely limiting action for each, then there is no
\ncosmos but only a Being musing within Himself infinitely as a creator or poet
\nmay muse freely, not plastically, before he proceeds to the determining work of
\ncreation. Such a state must exist somewhere in the infinite scale of existence,
\nbut it is not what we understand by a cosmos. Whatever order there may be in it,
\nmust be a sort of unfixed, unbinding order such as Supermind might evolve before
\nit had proceeded to the work of fixed development, measurement and interaction
\nof relations. For that measurement and interaction Mind is necessary, though it
\nneed not be aware of itself as anything but a subordinate action of Supermind
\nnor develop the interaction of relations on the basis of a self-imprisoned
\negoism such as we see active in terrestrial Nature.<\/p>\n

     
\nMind once existent, Life and Form of substance follow; for life is simply the
\ndetermination of force and action, of relation and interaction of energy from
\nmany fixed centres of consciousness,\u2014fixed, not necessarily in place or time,
\nbut in a persistent coexistence of beings or soul-forms of the Eternal
\nsupporting a cosmic harmony. That life may be very different from life as we
\nknow or conceive it, but essentially it would be the same principle at work
\nwhich we see here figured as vitality,\u2014the principle to which the ancient Indian
\nthinkers gave the name of Vayu or Prana, the life-stuff, the substantial will
\nand energy in the cosmos working out into determined form and action and
\nconscious dynamis of being. Substance too might be very different from our view
\nand sense of material body, much more subtle, much less rigidly binding in its
\nlaw of self-division and mutual resistance, and body or form might be an
\ninstrument and not a prison, yet for the cosmic interaction some determination
\nof form and substance would always be necessary,\n<\/p>\n

\n     Page-268<\/p>\n

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

\n

\neven if it be only a mental body or something yet more luminous, subtle and
\npuissantly and freely responsive than the freest mental body.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nIt follows that wherever Cosmos is, there, even if only one principle be
\ninitially apparent, even if at first that seem to be the sole principle of
\nthings and everything else that may appear afterwards in the world seem to be no
\nmore than its forms and results and not in themselves indispensable to cosmic
\nexistence, such a front presented by being can only be an illusory mask or
\nappearance of its real truth. Where one principle is manifest in Cosmos, there
\nall the rest must be not merely present and passively latent, but secretly at
\nwork. In any given world its scale and harmony of being may be openly in
\npossession of all seven at a higher or lower degree of activity; in another they
\nmay be all involved in one which becomes the initial or fundamental principle of
\nevolution in that world, but evolution of the involved there must be. The
\nevolution of the sevenfold power of being, the realisation of its septuple Name,
\nmust be the destiny of any world which starts apparently from the involution of
\nall in one power.\u00b9<\/font>
\n<\/font>Therefore the material universe was bound in the nature of things to
\nevolve from its hidden life apparent life, from its hidden mind apparent mind,
\nand it must in the same nature of things evolve from its hidden Supermind
\napparent Supermind and from the concealed Spirit within it the triune glory of
\nSachchidananda. The only question is whether the earth is to be a scene of that
\nemergence or the human creation on this or any other material scene, in this or
\nany other cycle of the large wheelings of Time, its instrument and vehicle. The
\nancient seers believed in this possibility for man and held it to be his divine
\ndestiny; the modern thinker does not even conceive of it or, if he conceived,
\nwould deny or doubt. If he sees a vision of the Superman, it is in the figure of
\nincreased degrees of mentality or vitality; he admits no other emergence, sees
\nnothing beyond these principles, for these have traced for us up till now our
\nlimit and circle. In this progressive<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nIn any given world there need not be an involution but only a subordination of
\nthe other principles to one or their inclusion in one; then evolution is not a
\nnecessity of that world-order.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Page-269<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nworld, with this human creature in whom the divine spark has been kindled, real
\nwisdom is likely to dwell with the higher aspiration rather than with the denial
\nof aspiration or with the hope that limits and circumscribes itself within those
\nnarrow walls of apparent possibility which are only our intermediate house of
\ntraining. In the spiritual order of things, the higher we project our view and
\nour aspiration, the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon us, because it
\nis already there within us and calls for its release from the covering that
\nconceals it in manifested Nature. <\/p>\n

\nPage- 270<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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