{"id":626,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=626"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:19","slug":"36-the-knowledge-and-the-ignorance-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\/36-the-knowledge-and-the-ignorance-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-36_The Knowledge and the Ignorance .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n\t\tC<\/font>hapter<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\tVII
\n<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t
\n\t\tThe Knowledge and the Ignorance
\n<\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

                             L<\/b>et the Knower distinguish the Knowledge and the Ignorance.
\n                                                                                                                               
\nRig Veda.<\/font>1<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

                           
\nTwo are there, hidden in the secrecy of the Infinite, the Knowledge
\n                           
\nand the Ignorance; but perishable is the Ignorance,
\nimmortal is the
\n                           
\nKnowledge; another than they is He who rules over both the
\n                           
\nKnowledge and the Ignorance.
\n
                                                                                                   
\nSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/font>2<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

                           
\nTwo Unborn, the Knower and one who knows not, the Lord and
\n                           
\none who has not mastery: one Unborn and in her are
\nthe object
\n                           
\nof enjoyment and the enjoyer.
\n
                                                                                                   
\nSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/font>3<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

                           
\nTwo are joined together, powers of Truth, powers of Maya,—they
\n                           
\nhave built the Child and given him birth and they
\nnourish his growth.
\n                                                                                                                               
\nRig Veda.<\/font>4<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    I<\/font><\/b>N<\/font> our scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality:
\nfor if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense,
\nenvisaged by the Spirit’s own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself
\ninto form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one
\nof its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real
\nessence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other than that All-Existence, All-Consciousness, All-Will,
\nAll-Delight which is the true truth behind every appearance. And they are not only one in their reality, but also inseparable in
\nthe sevenfold variety of their action. They are the seven colours of the light
\nof the divine consciousness, the seven rays of the Infinite, and by them the
\nSpirit has filled in on the canvas of his self-existence conceptually extended,
\nwoven of the objective warp <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     1<\/font><\/sup>IV. 2. 11.       
\n2<\/sup>V. 1.        3<\/sup>I. 9.       
\n4<\/sup>X. 5. 3.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 482 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

of Space and the subjective woof of Time, the myriad
\nwonders of his self-creation great, simple, symmetrical in its primal
\nlaws and vast framings, infinitely curious and intricate in its variety
\nof forms and actions and the complexities of relation and
\nmutual effect of all upon each and each upon all. These are the seven
\nWords of the ancient sages; by them have been
\ncreated and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be
\ninterpreted the developed and developing harmonies
\nof the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an
\nindirect knowledge. The Light, the Sound is one;
\ntheir action is sevenfold. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut here there is a world based upon an original Inconscience; here
\nconsciousness has formulated itself in the figure of
\nan ignorance labouring towards knowledge. We have seen that there is no
\nessential reason either in the nature of Being
\nitself or in the original character and fundamental relations of its
\nseven principles for this intrusion of Ignorance, of discord
\ninto the harmony, of darkness into the light, of division and
\nlimitation into the self-conscious infinity of the divine creation. For
\nwe can conceive, and since we can, the Divine can still more conceive,
\n— and since there is the conception, there must
\nsomewhere be the execution, the creation actual or intended, — a
\nuniversal harmony into which these contrary elements do
\nnot enter. The Vedic seers were conscious of such a divine
\nself-manifestation and looked on it as the greater world beyond
\nthis lesser, a freer and wider plane of consciousness and being, the
\ntruth-creation of the Creator which they described as the
\nseat or own home of the Truth, as the vast Truth, or the Truth, the
\nRight, the Vast,1<\/sup>or again as a Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun of Knowledge finishes his journey and unyokes his horses, where the
\nthousand rays of consciousness stand together so that there is That One, the supreme form of the Divine Being. But this
\nworld in which we live seemed to them to be a mingled weft in which truth is disfigured by an abundant falsehood,
\nanrtasya
\nbhureh<\/i>,2<\/sup> here the one light has to be born by its own vast force out of an initial darkness or\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

      1<\/font><\/sup>sadanam \\,rtasya, sve dame \\,rtasya, \\,rtasya b\\,rhate, \\,rtam satyam b\\,rhat.
\n
\n     2<\/sup> Rig Veda<\/i>, VII. 60. 5. <\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 483<\/p>\n

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

\n

sea of Inconscience;1<\/sup> immortality and godhead have to be built up out of an existence which is under the yoke of death, ignorance, weakness,
\nsuffering and limitation. This self-building they figured as the creation by man in himself of that other world or high ordered
\nharmony of infinite being which already exists perfect and eternal in the Divine Infinite. The lower is for us the first
\ncondition of the higher; the darkness is the dense body of the light, the Inconscient guards in itself all the concealed
\nSuperconscient, the powers of the division and falsehood hold from us but also for us and to be conquered from them the
\nriches and substance of the unity and the truth in their cave of subconscience. This was in their view, expressed in the
\nhighly figured enigmatic language of the early mystics, the sense and justification of man’s actual existence and his
\nconscious or unconscious Godward effort, his conception so paradoxical at first sight in a world which seems its very
\nopposite, his aspiration so impossible to a superficial view in a creature so ephemeral, weak, ignorant, limited, towards a
\nplenitude of immortality, knowledge, power, bliss, a divine and imperishable existence. <\/p>\n

   
\nFor, as a matter of fact, while the very keyword of the ideal creation
\nis a plenary self-consciousness and
\nself-possession in the infinite Soul and a perfect oneness, the keyword
\nof the creation of which we have present experience
\nis the very opposite; it is an original inconscience developing in life
\ninto a limited and divided self-consciousness, an original
\ninert subjection to the drive of a blind self-existent Force developing
\nin life into a struggle of the self-conscious being to
\npossess himself and all things and to establish in the kingdom of this
\nunseeing mechanic Force the reign of an enlightened
\nWill and Knowledge. And because the blind mechanic Force, — we know now
\nreally that it is no such thing, — confronts us
\neverywhere, initial, omnipresent, the fundamental law, the great total
\nenergy, and because the only enlightened will we
\nknow, our own, appears as a subsequent phenomenon, a result, a partial,
\nsubordinate, circumscribed, sporadic energy, the
\nstruggle seems to us at the best a very precarious and doubtful
\nventure. The Inconscient to our perceptions is the beginning
\nand the end; the self-conscious soul\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       1<\/font><\/sup> apraketam salilam.<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 484<\/p>\n

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

\n

seems hardly more than a temporary accident, a fragile blossom upon this great, dark and monstrous Ashwattha-tree of the
\nuniverse. Or if we suppose the soul to be eternal, it appears at least as a foreigner, an alien and not over well-treated guest
\nin the reign of this vast Inconscience. If not an accident in the Inconscient Darkness, it is perhaps a mistake, a stumble
\ndownwards of the superconscient Light. <\/p>\n

   
\nIf this view of things had a complete validity, then only the absolute
\nidealist, sent perhaps out of some higher existence,
\nunable to forget his mission, stung into indomitable enthusiasm by a
\ndivine oestrus or sustained in a calm and infinite fortitude
\nby the light and force and voice of the unseen Godhead, could persist
\nunder such circumstances in holding up before himself,
\nmuch more before an incredulous or doubting world, the hope of a full
\nsuccess for the human endeavour. Actually, for the
\nmost part, men either reject it from the beginning or turn away from it
\neventually, after some early enthusiasm, as a proved
\nimpossibility. The consistent materialist seeks a partial and
\nshort-lived power, knowledge, happiness, so much only as the
\ndominant inconscient order of Nature will allow to the struggling
\nself-consciousness of man if he accepts his limitations,
\nobeys her laws and makes as good a use of them by his enlightened will
\nas their inexorable mechanism will tolerate. The
\nreligionist seeks his reign of enlightened will, love or divine being,
\nhis kingdom of God, in that other world where they are
\nunalloyed and eternal. The philosophic mystic rejects all as a mental
\nillusion and aspires to self-extinction in some Nirvana or
\nelse an immersion in the featureless Absolute; if the soul or mind of
\nthe illusion-driven individual has dreamed of a divine
\nrealisation in this ephemeral world of the Ignorance, it must in the
\nend recognise its mistake and renounce its vain
\nendeavour. But still, since there are these two sides of existence, the
\nignorance of Nature and the light of the Spirit, and
\nsince there is behind them the One Reality, the reconciliation or at
\nany rate the bridging of the gulf forecast in the mystic
\nparables of the Veda ought to be possible. It is a keen sense of this
\npossibility which has taken different shapes and
\npersisted through the centuries, — the perfectibility of man, the
\nperfectibility of society, the Alwar’s vision of the descent of <\/p>\n


\nPage 485 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Vishnu and the Gods upon earth, the reign of the saints, sadhunam
\nrajyam,<\/i>
\nthe city of God, the millennium, the new heaven
\nand earth of the Apocalypse. But these intuitions have lacked a basis
\nof assured knowledge and the mind of man has
\nremained swinging between a bright future hope and a grey present
\ncertitude. But the grey certitude is not so certain as it
\nlooks and a divine life evolving or preparing in earth-Nature need not
\nbe a chimera. All acceptations of our defeat or our
\nlimitation start from the implied or explicit recognition, first, of an
\nessential dualism and, then, of an irreconcilable opposition
\nbetween the dual principles, between the Conscient and the Inconscient,
\nbetween Heaven and Earth, between God and the
\nWorld, between the limitless One and the limited Many, between the
\nKnowledge and the Ignorance. We have arrived by the
\ntrain of our reasoning at the conclusion that this need be no more than
\nan error of the sense-mind and the logical intellect
\nfounded upon a partial experience. We have seen that there can be and
\nis a perfectly rational basis for the hope of our
\nvictory; for the lower term of being in which we now live contains in
\nitself the principle and intention of that which exceeds
\nit and it is by its own self-exceeding and transformation into that
\nthat it can find and develop into a complete form its own
\nreal essence. <\/p>\n

     But
\nthere is one point in the reasoning which till now we have left
\nsomewhat obscure, and it is precisely in this matter of
\nthe co-existence of the Knowledge and the Ignorance. Admittedly, we
\nstart here from conditions which are the opposite of
\nthe ideal divine Truth and all the circumstances of that opposition are
\nfounded upon the being’s ignorance of himself and of
\nthe Self of all, outcome of an original cosmic Ignorance whose result
\nis self-limitation and the founding of life on division in
\nbeing, division in consciousness, division in will and force, division
\nin the light, division and limitation in knowledge, power,
\nlove with, as consequence, the positive opposite phenomena of egoism,
\nobscuration, incapacity, misuse of knowledge and
\nwill, disharmony, weakness and suffering. We have found that this
\nIgnorance, although shared by Matter and Life, has its
\nroots in the nature of Mind whose very office it is to measure off,
\nlimit, particularise and thereby divide. But Mind also is a universal<\/p>\n


\nPage 486 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

principle, is One, is Brahman, and therefore it has a tendency to a unifying and universalising knowledge as well as to that
\nwhich marks off and particularises. The particularising faculty of Mind only becomes Ignorance when it separates itself
\nfrom the higher principles of which it is a power and acts not only with its characteristic tendency, but also with a tendency
\nto exclude the rest of knowledge, to particularise first and foremost and always and to leave unity as a vague concept to be
\napproached only afterwards, when particularisation is complete, and through the sum of particulars. This exclusiveness is
\nthe very soul of Ignorance. <\/p>\n

  
\n  We must then seize hold on this strange power of Consciousness
\nwhich is the root of our ills, examine the principle of
\nits operation and detect not only its essential nature and origin, but
\nits power and process of operation and its last end and
\nmeans of removal. How is it that the Ignorance exists? How has any
\nprinciple or power in the infinite self-awareness been
\nable to put self-knowledge behind it and exclude all but its own
\ncharacteristic limited action? Certain thinkers1
\n<\/sup>have declared that the problem is insoluble, it is an original
\nmystery and is intrinsically incapable of explanation; only the fact
\nand the process can be stated: or else the question of the nature of
\nthe supreme original Existence or Non-existence is put
\naside as either unanswerable or unnecessary to answer. One can say that
\nMaya with its fundamental principle of ignorance
\nor illusion simply is, and this power of Brahman has the double force
\nof Knowledge and Ignorance inherently potential in it;
\nall we have to do is to recognise the fact and find a means of escape
\nout of the Ignorance, — through the Knowledge, but
\ninto what is beyond both Knowledge and Ignorance, — by renunciation of
\nlife, by recognition of the universal impermanency
\nof things and the vanity of cosmic existence. <\/p>\n

       But our mind cannot remain satisfied, — the mind of <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n       1<\/sup> Buddha refused to consider the metaphysical problem:
\nthe process by which our unreal individuality is constructed and a world of
\nsuffering maintained in existenceand the method of escape from it is all that is
\nof importance. Karma is a fact; the construction of objects, of an individuality
\nnot truly existent is the cause of suffering: to get rid of Karma, individuality
\nand suffering must be our objective ; by that elimination we shall pass into
\nwhatever may be free from these things, permanent, real; the way of liberation
\nalone matters.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 487<\/p>\n

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

\n

Buddhism itself did not remain satisfied, — with this evasion at the very root of the whole matter. In the first place, these
\nphilosophies, while thus putting aside the root question, do actually make far-reaching assertions that assume, not only a
\ncertain operation and symptoms, but a certain fundamental nature of the Ignorance from which their prescription of
\nremedies proceeds; and it is obvious that without such a radical diagnosis no prescription of remedies can be anything but an
\nempiric dealing. But if we are to evade the root-question, we have no means of judging whether the assertions advanced are
\ncorrect or the remedies prescribed the right ones, or whether there are not others which without being so violent,
\ndestructively radical or of the nature of a surgical mutilation or extinction of the patient may yet bring a more integral and
\nnatural cure. Secondly, it is always the business of man the thinker to know. He may not be able by mental means to know
\nthe essentiality of the Ignorance or of anything in the universe in the sense of defining it, because the mind can only know
\nthings in that sense by their signs, characters, forms, properties, functionings, relations to other things, not in their occult
\nself-being and essence. But we can pursue farther and farther, clarify more and more accurately our observation of the
\nphenomenal character and operation of the Ignorance until we get the right revealing word, the right indicating sense of the
\nthing and so come to know it, not by intellect but by vision and experience of the truth, by realising the truth in our own
\nbeing. The whole process of man’s highest intellectual knowledge is through this mental manipulation and discrimination to
\nthe point where the veil is broken and he can see; at the end spiritual knowledge comes in to help us to become what we
\nsee, to enter into the Light in which there is no Ignorance. <\/p>\n

    
\nIt is true that the first origin of the Ignorance is beyond us as
\nmental beings because our intelligence lives and moves
\nwithin the Ignorance itself and does not reach up to the point or
\nascend on to the plane where that separation took place of
\nwhich the individual mind is the result. But this is true of the first
\norigin and fundamental truth of all things, and on this
\nprinciple we should have to rest satisfied with a general agnosticism.
\nMan has to work in the Ignorance, to learn under its
\nconditions, to know it\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 488 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

up to its farthest point so that he may arrive at its borders where it meets the Truth, touch its final lid of luminous
\nobscuration and develop the faculties which enable him to overstep that powerful but really unsubstantial barrier. <\/p>\n

   
\nWe have then to scrutinise more closely than we have yet done the
\ncharacter and operation of this principle or this
\npower of Ignorance and arrive at a clearer conception of its nature and
\norigin. And first we must fix firmly in our minds
\nwhat we mean by the word itself. The distinction between the Knowledge
\nand the Ignorance begins with the hymns of the
\nRig Veda. Here knowledge appears to signify a consciousness of the
\nTruth, the Right, satyam rtam<\/i>, and of all that is of the
\norder of the Truth and Right; ignorance is an unconsciousness, acitti<\/i>, of the Truth and Right, an opposition to its workings
\nand a creation of false or adverse workings. Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the
\nsight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving
\nconscious vision and knowledge.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

In its actual operation this non-perceiving is not an entire inconscience, the inconscient sea from which this world has
\narisen, 2<\/sup><\/p>\n

but either a limited or a false knowledge, a knowledge based on the division of undivided being, founded upon the
\nfragmentary, the little, opposed to the opulent, vast and luminous completeness of things; it is a cognition which by the
\nopportunity of its limitations is turned into falsehood and supported in that aspect by the Sons of Darkness and Division,
\nenemies of the divine endeavour in man, the assailants, robbers, coverers of his light of knowledge. It was therefore
\nregarded as an undivine Maya, 3<\/sup><\/p>\n

that which creates false mental forms and appearances,—and hence the later significance of this word which seems to
\nhave meant originally a formative power of knowledge, the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but was
\nalso used for the adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa.
\nThe divine Maya is the knowledge of the Truth of things, its essence, law, operation, which the gods possess and on which
\nthey found their own eternal action and creation 4<\/sup> and their building
\nof their powers <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

        1 acitti <\/i>and citti  <\/i>     
\n2 apraketam salilam.<\/i>        3 adevi
\nmaya.<\/i>       4 devanam adabdha vratani.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 489 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

in the human being. This idea of the Vedic mystics can in a more metaphysical thought and language be translated into the
\nconception that the Ignorance is in its origin a dividing mental knowledge which does not grasp the unity, essence, self-law
\nof things in their one origin and in their universality, but works rather upon divided particulars, separate phenomena, partial
\nrelations, as if they were the truth we had to seize or as if they could really be understood at all without going back behind
\nthe division to the unity, behind the dispersion to the universality. The Knowledge is that which tends towards unification
\nand, attaining to the supramental faculty, seizes the oneness, the essence, the self-law of existence and views and deals with
\nthe multiplicity of things out of that light and plenitude, in some sort as does the Divine Himself from the highest height
\nwhence He embraces the world. It must be noted, however, that the Ignorance in this conception of it is still a kind of
\nknowledge, but, because it is limited, it is open at any point to the intrusion of falsehood and error; it turns into a wrong
\nconception of things which stands in opposition to the true Knowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn the Vedantic thought of the Upanishad we find the original Vedic
\nterms replaced by the familiar antinomy of Vidya
\nand Avidya, and with the change of terms there has come a certain
\ndevelopment of significance: for since the nature of the
\nKnowledge is to find the Truth and the fundamental Truth is the One, —
\nthe Veda speaks repeatedly of it as “That Truth”
\nand “That One”, — Vidya, Knowledge in its highest spiritual sense, came
\nto mean purely and trenchantly the knowledge of
\nthe One, Avidya, Ignorance, purely and trenchantly the knowledge of the
\ndivided Many divorced, as in our world it is
\ndivorced, from the unifying consciousness of the One Reality. The
\ncomplex associations, the rich contents, the luminous
\npenumbra of varied and corollary ideas and significant figures which
\nbelonged to the conception of the Vedic words, were
\nlargely lost in a language more precise and metaphysical, less
\npsychological and flexible. Still the later exaggerated idea of
\nabsolute separation from the true truth of Self and Spirit, of an
\noriginal illusion, of a consciousness that can be equated with
\ndream or with hallucination, did not at first enter into the Vedantic
\nconception of the Ignorance. If in the <\/p>\n


\nPage 490 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Upanishads it is declared that the man who lives and moves within the Ignorance, wanders about stumbling like a blind man
\nled by the blind and returns ever to the net of Death which is spread wide for him, it is also affirmed elsewhere in the
\nUpanishads that he who follows after the Knowledge only, enters as if into a blinder darkness than he who follows after the
\nIgnorance and that the man who knows Brahman as both the Ignorance and the Knowledge, as both the One and the Many,
\nas both the Becoming and the Non-Becoming, crosses by the Ignorance, by the experience of the Multiplicity, beyond death
\nand by the Knowledge takes possession of Immortality. For the Self-existent has really become these many existences; the
\nUpanishad can say to the Divine Being, in all solemnity and with no thought to mislead, “Thou art this old man walking with
\nhis staff, yonder boy and girl, this blue-winged bird, that red of eye”, not “Thou seemest to be these things” to the
\nself-deluding mind of the Ignorance. The status of becoming is inferior to the status of Being, but still it is the Being that
\nbecomes all that is in the universe. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut the development of the separative distinction could not stop here;
\nit had to go to its logical extreme. Since the
\nknowledge of the One is Knowledge and the knowledge of the Many is
\nIgnorance, there can be, in a rigidly analytic and
\ndialectical view, nothing but pure opposition between the things
\ndenoted by the two terms; there is no essential unity
\nbetween them, no reconciliation possible. Therefore Vidya alone is
\nKnowledge, Avidya is pure Ignorance; and, if pure
\nIgnorance takes a positive form, it is because it is not merely a
\nnot-knowing of Truth, but a creation of illusions and
\ndelusions, of seemingly real unrealities, of temporarily valid
\nfalsehoods. Obviously then, the object matter of Avidya can
\nhave no true and abiding existence; the Many are an illusion, the world
\nhas no real being. Undoubtedly it has a sort of
\nexistence while it lasts, as a dream has or the long-continued
\nhallucination of a delirious or a demented brain, but no more.
\nThe One has not become and can never become Many; the Self has not and
\ncannot become all these existences; Brahman
\nhas not manifested and cannot manifest a real world in itself: it is
\nonly the Mind or some principle of which Mind is a result
\nthat thrusts names and forms upon the featureless unity which is alone
\nreal <\/p>\n

\nPage 491<\/p>\n

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

\n

and, being essentially featureless, cannot manifest
\nreal feature and variation; or else, if it manifests these things, then
\nthat is
\na temporal and temporary reality which vanishes and is convicted of
\nunreality by the illumination of true knowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nOur view of the ultimate Reality and of the true nature of Maya has
\ncompelled us to depart from these later fine
\nexcesses of the dialectical intellect and return to the original
\nVedantic conception. While giving every tribute to the
\nmagnificent fearlessness of these extreme conclusions, to the
\nuncompromising logical force and acuity of these speculations,
\ninexpugnable so long as the premisses are granted, admitting the truth
\nof two of the main contentions, the sole Reality of the
\nBrahman and the fact that our normal conceptions about ourselves and
\nworld-existence are stamped with ignorance, are
\nimperfect, are misleading, we are obliged to withdraw from the hold so
\npowerfully laid by this conception of Maya on the
\nintelligence. But the obsession of this long-established view of things
\ncannot be removed altogether so long as we do not
\nfathom the true nature of the Ignorance and the true and total nature
\nof the Knowledge. For if these two are independent,
\nequal and original powers of the Consciousness, then the possibility of
\na cosmic Illusion pursues us. If Ignorance is the very
\ncharacter of cosmic existence, then our experience of the universe, if
\nnot the universe itself, becomes illusory. Or, if
\nIgnorance is not the very grain of our natural being, but still an
\noriginal and eternal power of Consciousness, then, while
\nthere can be a truth of cosmos, it may be impossible for a being in the
\nuniverse, while he is in it, to know its truth: he can
\nonly arrive at real knowledge by passing beyond mind and thought,
\nbeyond this world-formation, and viewing all things from
\nabove in some supracosmic or super-cosmic consciousness like those who
\nhave become of one nature with the Eternal and
\ndwell in Him, unborn in the creation and unafflicted by the cataclysmic
\ndestruction of the worlds below them.1<\/sup> <\/p>\n

But the solution of this problem cannot be satisfactorily pursued and reached on the basis of an examination of words and
\nideas or a dialectical discussion; it must be the result of a total observation and penetration of the relevant facts of
\nconsciousness, — both<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

      1<\/sup> Gita.<\/p>\n


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those of the surface and those below or above our surface level or behind our frontal surface, — and a successful fathoming
\nof their significance. <\/p>\n

    
\nFor the dialectical intellect is not a sufficient judge of essential or
\nspiritual truths; moreover, very often, by its propensity
\nto deal with words and abstract ideas as if they were binding
\nrealities, it wears them as chains and does not look freely
\nbeyond them to the essential and total facts of our existence.
\nIntellectual statement is an account to our intelligence and a
\njustification by reasoning of a seeing of things which pre-exists in
\nour turn of mind or temperament or in some tendency of
\nour nature and secretly predetermines the very reasoning that claims to
\nlead to it. That reasoning itself can be conclusive
\nonly if the perception of things on which it rests is both a true and a
\nwhole seeing. Here what we have to see truly and
\nintegrally is the nature and validity of our consciousness, the origin
\nand scope of our mentality; for then alone can we know
\nthe truth of our being and nature and of world-being and world-nature.
\nOur principle in such an inquiry must be to see and
\nknow; the dialectical intellect is to be used only so far as it helps
\nto clarify our arrangement and justify our expression of the
\nvision and the knowledge, but it cannot be allowed to govern our
\nconceptions and exclude truth that does not fall within the
\nrigid frame of its logic. Illusion, knowledge and ignorance are terms
\nor results of our consciousness, and it is only by looking
\ndeeply into our consciousness that we can discover and determine the
\ncharacter and relations of the Knowledge and the
\nIgnorance or of the Illusion, if it exists, and the Reality. Being is
\nno doubt the fundamental object of inquiry, things in
\nthemselves and things in their nature; but it is only through
\nconsciousness that we can approach Being. Or if it be maintained
\nthat we can only reach Being, enter into the Real, because it is
\nsuperconscient, through extinction or transcendence of
\nconsciousness or through its self-transcendence and
\nself-transformation, it is still through consciousness that we must
\narrive
\nat the knowledge of this necessity and the process or power of
\nexecution of this extinction or this self-transcendence, this
\ntransformation: then, through consciousness, to know of the
\nSuperconscient Truth becomes the supreme need\n<\/p>\n


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\n

and to discover the power and process of consciousness by which it can pass into superconscience, the supreme discovery. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut in ourselves consciousness seems to be identical with Mind; in any
\ncase Mind is so dominant a factor of our being
\nthat to examine its fundamental movements is the first necessity. In
\nfact, however, Mind is not the whole of us; there is also
\nin us a life and a body, a subconscience and an inconscience; there is
\na spiritual entity whose origin and secret truth carry us
\ninto an occult inward consciousness and a superconscience. If Mind were
\nall or if the nature of the original Consciousness
\nin things were of the nature of Mind, Illusion or Ignorance might
\nconceivably be regarded as the source of our natural
\nexistence: for limitation of knowledge and obscuration of knowledge by
\nMind-nature create error and illusion, illusions
\ncreated by Mind-action are among the first facts of our consciousness.
\nIt might therefore be conceivably held that Mind is
\nthe matrix of an Ignorance which makes us create or represent to
\nourselves a false world, a world that is nothing more than
\na subjective construction of the consciousness. Or else Mind might be
\nthe matrix in which some original Illusion or
\nIgnorance, Maya or Avidya, cast the seed of a false impermanent
\nuniverse; Mind would still be the mother, — a “barren
\nmother” since the child would be unreal, — and Maya or Avidya could be
\nlooked at as a sort of grandmother of the universe;
\nfor Mind itself would be a production or reproduction of Maya. But it
\nis difficult to discern the physiognomy of this obscure
\nand enigmatic ancestress; for we have then to impose a cosmic
\nimagination or an illusion-consciousness on the eternal
\nReality; Brahman the Reality must itself either be or have or support a
\nconstructing Mind or some constructive
\nconsciousness greater than Mind but of an analogous nature, must be by
\nits activity or its sanction the creator and even
\nperhaps in some sort by participation a victim, like Mind, of its own
\nillusion and error. It would not be less perplexing if Mind
\nwere simply a medium or mirror in which there falls the reflection of
\nan original illusion or a false image or shadow of the
\nReality. For the origin of this medium of reflection would be
\ninexplicable and the origin also of the false image cast upon it
\nwould be inexplicable. An indeterminable Brahman<\/p>\n


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\n

could only be reflected as something indeterminable,
\nnot as a manifold universe. Or if it be the inequality of the
\nreflecting
\nmedium, its nature as of rippling and restless water that creates
\nbroken images of the Reality, still it would be broken and
\ndistorted reflections of the Truth that would appear there, not a
\npullulation of false names and images of things that had no
\nsource or basis of existence in the Reality. There must be some
\nmanifold truth of the one Reality which is reflected,
\nhowever falsely or imperfectly, in the manifold images of the mind’s
\nuniverse. It could then very well be that the world might
\nbe a reality and only the mind’s construction of it or picture of it
\nerroneous or imperfect. But this would imply that there is a
\nKnowledge, other than our mental thought and perception which is only
\nan attempt at knowing, a true cognition which is
\naware of the Reality and aware also in it of the truth of a real
\nuniverse. <\/p>\n

    
\nFor if we found that the highest Reality and an ignorant Mind alone
\nexist, we might have no choice but to admit the
\nIgnorance as an original power of the Brahman and to accept as the
\nsource of all things Avidya or Maya. Maya would be
\nan eternal power of the self-aware Brahman to delude itself or rather
\nto delude something that seems to be itself, something
\ncreated by Maya; Mind would be the ignorant consciousness of a soul
\nthat exists only as a part of Maya. Maya would be
\nthe Brahman’s power to foist name and form upon itself, Mind its power
\nto receive them and take them for realities. Or
\nMaya would be Brahman’s power to create illusions knowing them to be
\nillusions, Mind its power to receive illusions
\nforgetting that they are illusions. But if Brahman is essentially and
\nalways one in self-awareness, this trick would not be
\npossible. If Brahman can divide itself in that fashion, at once knowing
\nand not knowing or one part knowing and the other
\nnot knowing, or even if it can put something of itself into Maya, then
\nBrahman must be capable of a double, — or a
\nmanifold, — action of consciousness, one a consciousness of Reality,
\nthe other a consciousness of illusion, or one an ignorant
\nconsciousness and the other a superconscience. This duality or
\nmanifoldness seems at first sight logically impossible, yet it
\nmust be on this hypothesis the crucial fact of existence, a spiritual
\nmystery, a suprarational paradox. But once\n<\/p>\n


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\n

we admit the origin of things as a suprarational mystery, we can equally or preferably accept this other crucial fact of the
\nOne becoming or being always many and the Many being or becoming the One; this too is at first view dialectically
\nimpossible, a suprarational paradox, yet it presents itself to us as an eternal fact and law of existence. But if that is
\naccepted, there is then no longer any need for the intervention of an illusive Maya. Or, equally, we can accept, as we have
\naccepted, the conception of an Infinite and Eternal which is capable, by the infinite power of its consciousness, of
\nmanifesting the fathomless and illimitable Truth of its being in many aspects and processes, in innumerable expressive forms
\nand movements; these aspects, processes, forms, movements could be regarded as real expressions, real consequences of
\nits infinite Reality; even the Inconscience and Ignorance could then be accepted among them as reverse aspects, as powers
\nof an involved consciousness and a self-limited knowledge brought forward because necessary to a certain movement in
\nTime, a movement of involution and evolution of the Reality. If suprarational in its basis, this total conception is not
\naltogether a paradox; it only demands a change, an enlargement in our conceptions of the Infinite. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut the real world cannot be known and none of these possibilities can
\nbe put to the test if we consider Mind alone or
\nonly Mind’s power for ignorance. Mind has a power also for truth; it
\nopens its thought-chamber to Vidya as well as to
\nAvidya, and if its starting-point is Ignorance, if its passage is
\nthrough crooked ways of error, still its goal is always
\nKnowledge: there is in it an impulse of truth-seeking, a power, — even
\nthough secondary and limited, — of truth-finding and
\ntruth-creation. Even if it is only images or representations or
\nabstract expressions of truth that it can show us, still these are
\nin their own manner truth-reflections or truth-formations, and the
\nrealities of which they are forms are present in their more
\nconcrete truth in some deeper depth or on some higher level of power of
\nour consciousness. Matter and Life may be the
\nform of realities of which Mind touches only an incomplete figure;
\nSpirit may have secret and supernal realities of which
\nMind is only a partial and rudimentary receiver, transcriber or
\ntransmitter. It would then be only by\n<\/p>\n


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\n

an examination of other supramental and inframental
\nas well as higher and deeper mental powers of consciousness that we
\ncan arrive at the whole reality. And in the end all depends on the
\ntruth of the supreme Consciousness — or the Superconscience — that
\nbelongs to the highest Reality and the relation to it of Mind,
\nSupermind, Infra-Mind and the
\nInconscience. <\/p>\n

     All
\nindeed changes when we penetrate the lower and the higher depths of
\nconsciousness and unite them in the one
\nomnipresent Reality. If we take the facts of our and the world’s being,
\nwe find existence to be one always, — a unity governs
\neven its utmost multiplicity; but the multiplicity is also on the face
\nof things undeniable. We have found unity pursuing us
\neverywhere: even, when we go below the surface, we find that there is
\nno binding dualism; the contradictories and
\noppositions which the intellect creates exist only as aspects of the
\noriginal Truth; oneness and multiplicity are poles of the
\nsame Reality; the dualities that trouble our consciousness are
\ncontrasted truths of one and the same Truth of being. All
\nmultiplicity resolves itself into a manifoldness of the one Being, the
\none Consciousness of Being, the one Delight of Being.
\nThus in the duality of pleasure and pain, we have seen that pain is a
\ncontrary effect of the one delight of existence resulting
\nfrom the weakness of the recipient, his inability to assimilate the
\nforce that meets him, his incapacity to bear the touch of
\ndelight that would otherwise be felt in it; it is a perverse reaction
\nof Consciousness to Ananda, not itself a fundamental
\nopposite of Ananda: this is shown by the significant fact that pain can
\npass into pleasure and pleasure into pain and both
\nresolve into the original Ananda. So too every form of weakness is
\nreally a particular working of the one divine Will-Force
\nor the one Cosmic Energy; weakness in that Force means its power to
\nhold back, measure, relate in a particular way its
\naction of Force; incapacity or weakness is the Self’s withholding of
\nits force-completeness or an insufficient reaction of
\nForce, not its fundamental opposite. If this is so, then also it may
\nbe, and should be in the nature of things, that what we call
\nIgnorance is not really anything else than a power of the one divine
\nKnowledge-Will or Maya; it is the capacity of the One<\/p>\n


\nPage 497 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Consciousness similarly to regulate, to hold back, measure, relate in a particular way the action of its Knowledge.
\nKnowledge and Ignorance will then be, not two irreconcilable principles, one creative of world-existence, the other intolerant
\nand destructive of it, but two co-existent powers both present in the universe itself, diversely operating in the conduct of its
\nprocesses but one in their essence and able to pass by a natural transmutation into each other. But in their fundamental
\nrelation Ignorance would not be an equal co-existent, it would be dependent on Knowledge, a limitation or a contrary action
\nof Knowledge. <\/p>\n

   
\nTo know, we have always to dissolve the rigid constructions of the
\nignorant and self-willed intellect and look freely and
\nflexibly at the facts of existence. Its fundamental fact is
\nconsciousness which is power, and we actually see that this power
\nhas three ways of operating. First, we find that there is a
\nconsciousness behind all, embracing all, within all, which is
\neternally, universally, absolutely aware of itself whether in unity or
\nmultiplicity or in both simultaneously or beyond both in its
\nsheer absolute. This is the plenitude of the supreme divine
\nself-knowledge; it is also the plenitude of the divine
\nall-knowledge. Next, at the other pole of things, we see this
\nconsciousness dwelling upon apparent oppositions in itself, and
\nthe most extreme antinomy of all reaches its acme in what seems to us
\nto be a complete nescience of itself, an effective,
\ndynamic, creative Inconscience, though we know that this is merely a
\nsurface appearance and that the divine Knowledge
\nworks with a sovereign security and sureness within the operations of
\nthe Inconscient. Between these two oppositions and
\nas a mediary term we see Consciousness working with a partial, limited
\nself-awareness which is equally superficial, for
\nbehind it and acting through it is the divine All-Knowledge. Here in
\nits intermediate status, it seems to be a standing
\ncompromise between the two opposites, between the supreme Consciousness
\nand the Nescience, but may prove rather in a
\nlarger view of our data to be an incomplete emergence of the Knowledge
\nto the surface. This compromise or imperfect
\nemergence we call the Ignorance, from our own point of view, because
\nignorance is our own characteristic way of the
\nsoul’s self-withholding of complete\n<\/p>\n


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\n

self-knowledge. The origin of these three poises of the power of consciousness and their exact relation is what we have, if
\npossible, to discover. <\/p>\n

    
\nIf we discovered that Ignorance and Knowledge were two independent
\npowers of Consciousness, it might then be that
\nwe would have to pursue their difference up to the highest point of
\nConsciousness where they would cease only in an
\nAbsolute from which both of them had issued together.1<\/sup> 
\nIt might then be concluded that the only real knowledge is the truth of
\nthe superconscient Absolute and that truth of
\nconsciousness, truth of cosmos, truth of ourselves in cosmos is at best
\na partial figure burdened always with a concomitant
\npresence, an encircling penumbra, a pursuing shadow of Ignorance. It
\nmight even be that an absolute Knowledge
\nestablishing truth, harmony, order and an absolute Inconscience basing
\na play of fantasy, disharmony and disorder,
\nsupporting inexorably its extreme of falsehood, wrong and suffering, a
\nManichean double principle of conflicting and
\nintermingling light and darkness, good and evil, stand at the root of
\ncosmic existence. The idea of certain thinkers that there
\nis an absolute good but also an absolute evil, both of them an approach
\nto the Absolute, might assume consistence. But if we
\nfind that Knowledge and Ignorance are light and shadow of the same
\nconsciousness, that the beginning of Ignorance is a
\nlimitation of Knowledge, that it is the limitation that opens the door
\nto a subordinate possibility of partial illusion and error,
\nthat this possibility takes full body after a purposeful plunge of
\nKnowledge into a material Inconscience but that Knowledge
\ntoo emerges along with an emerging Consciousness out of the
\nInconscience, then we can be sure that this fullness of
\nIgnorance is by its own evolution changing back into a limited
\nKnowledge and can feel the assurance that the limitation itself
\nwill be removed and the full truth of things become apparent, the
\ncosmic Truth free itself from the cosmic Ignorance. In
\nfact, what is happening is that the Ignorance is seeking and\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     1 <\/sup>In the Upanishads Vidya and Avidya
\nare spoken of as eternal in the supreme Brahman; but this can be accepted in the
\nsense of the consciousness of the multiplicity and the consciousness of the
\nOneness which by co-existence in the supreme self-awareness became the basis of
\nthe Manifestation; they would there be two sides of an eternal self-knowledge.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


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\n

preparing to transform itself by a progressive illumination of its darknesses
\ninto the Knowledge that is already concealed within it; the cosmic truth
\nmanifested in its real essence and figure would by that transformation reveal
\nitself as essence and figure of the supreme omnipresent Reality. It is from this
\ninterpretation of existence that we have started, but to verify it we must
\nobserve the structure of our surface consciousness and its relation to what is
\nwithin it and above and below it; for so best we can distinguish the nature and
\nscope of the Ignorance. In that process there will appear the nature and scope
\nalso of that of which the Ignorance is a limitation and deformation, the
\nKnowledge, — in its totality the spiritual being’s abiding self-knowledge and
\nworld-knowledge. <\/p>\n


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