{"id":635,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=635"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:22","slug":"21-death-desire-and-incapacity-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\/21-death-desire-and-incapacity-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-21_Death, Desire and Incapacity .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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

\nDeath, Desire and Incapacity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

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

\nIn the beginning all was covered by Hunger that is Death; that <\/font><\/p>\n


\nmade for itself Mind so that it might attain to possession of self.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n                                                                                           
\nUpanishad.\u00b9
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This
\nis the Power discovered by the mortal that has the multitude <\/font><\/p>\n

                                                                                                                                                                                                            
\nof its desires so that it may sustain all things; it takes the taste <\/font><\/p>\n

                                                                                                                                                                            
\nof all foods and builds a house for the being.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n                                                                                                
\nRig Veda.\u00b2
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

    
\nI<\/b>n our<\/font>
\nlast chapter we have considered Life from the point of view of the material
\nexistence and the appearance and working of the vital principle in Matter and we
\nhave reasoned from the data which this evolutionary terrestrial existence
\noffers. But it is evident that wherever it may appear and however it may work,
\nunder whatsoever conditions, the general principle must be everywhere the same.
\nLife is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify,
\neven to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with
\nmutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its
\nfundamental character. In the material world we inhabit Mind is involved and
\nsubconscious in Life, just as Supermind is involved and subconscious in Mind,
\nand this Life instinct with an involved subconscious Mind is again itself
\ninvolved in Matter. Therefore Matter is here the basis and the apparent
\nbeginning; in the language of the Upanishads, Prithivi, the Earth-principle, is
\nour foundation. The material universe starts from the formal atom surcharged
\nwith energy, instinct with the unformed stuff of a subconscious desire, will,
\nintelligence. Out of this Matter apparent Life manifests and it delivers out of
\nitself by means of the living body the Mind it contains imprisoned within it;
\nMind also has still to deliver out of itself the Supermind concealed in its
\nworkings. But we can conceive a world otherwise constituted in which Mind is not
\ninvolved at the start but consciously uses its innate energy to create original
\nforms of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     
\n\u00b9 <\/font>I.2.1.<\/p>\n

        \u00b2<\/font>
\nV.7.6.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Page-188<\/p>\n

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

\n

\nsubstance and is not, as here, only subconscious in the beginning. Still though
\nthe working of such a world would be quite different from ours, the intermediate
\nvehicle of operation of that energy would always be Life. The thing itself would
\nbe the same, even if the process were entirely reversed.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nBut then it appears immediately that as Mind is only a final operation of
\nSupermind, so Life is only a final operation of the Consciousness-Force of which
\nReal-Idea is the determinative form and creative agent. Consciousness that is
\nForce is the nature of Being and this conscious Being manifested as a creative
\nKnowledge-Will is the Real-Idea or Supermind. The supramental Knowledge-Will is
\nConsciousness-Force rendered operative for the creation of forms of united being
\nin an ordered harmony to which we give the name of world or universe; so also
\nMind and Life are the same Consciousness-Force, the same Knowledge-Will, but
\noperating for the maintenance of distinctly individual forms in a sort of
\ndemarcation, opposition and interchange in which the soul in each form of being
\nworks out its own mind and life as if they were separate from the others, though
\nin fact they are never separate but are the play of the one Soul, Mind, Life in
\ndifferent forms of its single reality. In other words, as Mind is the final
\nindividualising operation of the all-comprehending and all-apprehending
\nSupermind, the process by which its consciousness works individualised in each
\nform from the standpoint proper to it and with the cosmic relations which
\nproceed from that standpoint, so Life is the final operation by which the Force
\nof Conscious-Being acting through the all-possessing and all-creative Will of
\nthe universal Supermind maintains and energises, constitutes and reconstitutes
\nindividual forms and acts in them as the basis of all the activities of the soul
\nthus embodied. Life is the energy of the Divine continually generating itself in
\nforms as in a dynamo and not only playing with the outgoing battery of its
\nshocks on surrounding forms of things but receiving itself the incoming shocks
\nof all life around as they pour in upon and penetrate the form from outside,
\nfrom the environing universe. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn this view Life appears as a form of energy of consciousness intermediary and
\nappropriate to the action of Mind on Matter; <\/p>\n

\nPage-189 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

in
\na sense, it may be said to be an energy aspect of Mind when it creates and
\nrelates itself no longer to ideas, but to motions of force and to forms of
\nsubstance. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut it must immediately be added that just as Mind is not a separate entity, but
\nhas all Supermind behind it and it is Supermind that creates with Mind only as
\nits final individualising operation, so Life also is not a separate entity or
\nmovement, but has all Conscious-Force behind it in every one of its workings and
\nit is that Conscious-Force alone which exists and acts in created things. Life
\nis only its final operation intermediary between Mind and Body. All that we say
\nof Life must therefore be subject to the qualifications arising from this
\ndependence. We do not really know Life whether in its nature or its process
\nunless and until we are aware and grow conscious of that Conscious-Force working
\nin it of which it is only the external aspect and instrumentation. Then only can
\nwe perceive and execute with knowledge, as individual soul-forms and mental and
\nbodily instruments of the Divine, the will of God in Life; then only can Life
\nand Mind proceed in paths and movements of an ever-increasing straightness of
\nthe truth in ourselves and things by a constant diminishing of the crooked
\nperversions of the Ignorance. Just as Mind has to unite itself consciously with
\nthe Supermind from which it is separated by the action of Avidya, so Life has to
\nbecome aware of the Conscious-Force which operates in it for ends and with a
\nmeaning of which the life in us, because it is absorbed in the mere process of
\nliving as our mind is absorbed in the mere process of mentalising life and
\nmatter, is unconscious in its darkened action so that it serves them blindly and
\nignorantly and not, as it must and will in its liberation and fulfilment,
\nluminously or with a self-fulfilling knowledge, power and bliss.<\/p>\n

     
\nIn fact, our Life, because it is subservient to the darkened and dividing
\noperation of Mind, is itself darkened and divided and undergoes all that
\nsubjection to death, limitation, weakness, suffering, ignorant functioning of
\nwhich the bound and limited creature-Mind is the parent and cause. The original
\nsource of the perversion was, we have seen, the self-limitation of the
\nindividual soul bound to self-ignorance because it regards itself by an
\nexclusive concentration as a separate self-existent <\/p>\n

\nPage-190<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nindividuality and regards all cosmic action only as it presents itself to its
\nown individual consciousness, knowledge, will, force, enjoyment and limited
\nbeing instead of seeing itself as a conscious form of the One and embracing all
\nconsciousness, all knowledge, all will, all force, all enjoyment and all being
\nas one with its own. The universal life in us, obeying this direction of the
\nsoul imprisoned in mind, itself becomes imprisoned in an individual action. It
\nexists and acts as a separate life with a limited insufficient capacity
\nundergoing and not freely embracing the shock and pressure of all the cosmic
\nlife around it. Thrown into the constant cosmic interchange of Force in the
\nuniverse as a poor, limited, individual existence, Life at first helplessly
\nsuffers and obeys the giant interplay with only a mechanical reaction upon all
\nthat attacks, devours, enjoys, uses, drives it. But as consciousness develops,
\nas the light of its own being emerges from the inert darkness of the
\ninvolutionary sleep, the individual existence becomes dimly aware of the power
\nin it and seeks first nervously and then mentally to master, use and enjoy the
\nplay. This awakening to the Power in it is the gradual awakening to self. For
\nLife is Force and Force is Power and Power is Will and Will is the working of
\nthe Master-Consciousness. Life in the individual becomes more and more aware in
\nits depths that it too is the Will-Force of Sachchidananda which is master of
\nthe universe and it aspires itself to be individually master of its own world.
\nTo realise its own power and to master as well as to know its world is therefore
\nthe increasing impulse of all individual life; that impulse is an essential
\nfeature of the growing self-manifestation of the Divine in cosmic existence.<\/p>\n

     
\nBut though Life is Power and the growth of individual life means the growth of
\nthe individual Power, still the mere fact of its being a divided individualised
\nlife and force prevents it from really becoming master of its world. For that
\nwould mean to be master of the All-Force, and it is impossible for a divided and
\nindividualised consciousness with a divided, individualised and therefore
\nlimited power and will to be master of the All-Force; only the All-Will can be
\nthat and the individual only, if at all, by becoming again one with the All-Will
\nand therefore with the All-Force. Otherwise, the individual life in the<\/p>\n

\n Page-191<\/p>\n

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

\n

\nindividual form must be always subject to the three badges of its limitation,
\nDeath, Desire and Incapacity.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nDeath is imposed on the individual life both by the conditions of its own
\nexistence and by its relations to the All-Force which manifests itself in the
\nuniverse. For the individual life is a particular play of energy specialised to
\nconstitute, maintain, energise and finally to dissolve when its utility is over,
\none of the myriad forms which all serve, each in its own place, time and scope,
\nthe whole play of the universe. The energy of life in the body has to support
\nthe attack of the energies external to it in the universe; it has to draw them
\nin and feed upon them and is itself being constantly devoured by them. All
\nMatter according to the Upanishad is food, and this is the formula of the
\nmaterial world that \u201cthe eater eating is himself eaten\u201d. The life organised in
\nthe body is constantly exposed to the possibility of being broken up by the
\nattack of the life external to it or, its devouring capacity being insufficient
\nor not properly served or there being no right balance between the capacity of
\ndevouring and the capacity or necessity of providing food for the life outside,
\nit is unable to protect itself and is devoured or is unable to renew itself and
\ntherefore wasted away or broken; it has to go through the process of death for a
\nnew construction or renewal.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nNot only so but, again in the language of the Upanishad, the life-force is the
\nfood of the body and the body the food of the life-force; in other words, the
\nlife-energy in us both supplies the material by which the form is built up and
\nconstantly maintained and renewed and is at the same time constantly using up
\nthe substantial form of itself which it thus creates and keeps in existence. If
\nthe balance between these two operations is imperfect or is disturbed or if the
\nordered play of the different currents of life-force is thrown out of gear, then
\ndisease and decay intervene and commence the process of disintegration. And the
\nvery struggle for conscious mastery and even the growth of mind make the
\nmaintenance of the life more difficult. For there is an increasing demand of the
\nlife-energy on the form, a demand which is in excess of the original system of
\nsupply and disturbs the original balance of supply and demand and, before a new
\nbalance can be established, many disorders are\n<\/p>\n

\n     Page-192<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nintroduced inimical to the harmony and to the length of maintenance of the life;
\nin addition the attempt at mastery creates always a corresponding reaction in
\nthe environment which is full of forces that also desire fulfilment and are
\ntherefore intolerant of, revolt against and attack the existence which seeks to
\nmaster them. There too a balance is disturbed, a more intense struggle is
\ngenerated; however strong the mastering life, unless either it is unlimited or
\nelse succeeds in establishing a new harmony with its environment, it cannot
\nalways resist and triumph but must one day be overcome and disintegrated.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nBut, apart from all these necessities, there is the one fundamental necessity of
\nthe nature and object of embodied life itself, which is to seek infinite
\nexperience on a finite basis, and since the form, the basis by its very
\norganisation limits the possibility of experience, this can only be done by
\ndissolving it and seeking new forms. For the soul, having once limited itself by
\nconcentrating on the moment and the field, is driven to seek its infinity again
\nby the principle of succession, by adding moment to moment and thus storing up a
\nTime-experience which it calls its past; in that Time it moves through
\nsuccessive fields, successive experiences or lives, successive accumulations of
\nknowledge, capacity, enjoyment, and all this it holds in subconscious or
\nsuperconscious memory as its fund of past acquisition in Time. To this process
\nchange of form is essential, and for the soul involved in individual body change
\nof form means dissolution of the body in subjection to the law and compulsion of
\nthe All-life in the material universe, to its law of supply of the material of
\nform and demand on the material, to its principle of constant intershock and the
\nstruggle of the embodied life to exist in a world of mutual devouring. And this
\nis the law of Death.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nThis then is the necessity and justification of Death, not as a denial of Life,
\nbut as a process of Life; death is necessary because eternal change of form is
\nthe sole immortality to which the finite living substance can aspire and eternal
\nchange of experience the sole infinity to which the finite mind involved in
\nliving body can attain. This change of form cannot be allowed to remain merely a
\nconstant renewal of the same form-type such as constitutes our bodily life
\nbetween birth and death; for unless<\/p>\n

\n Page-193<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe form-type is changed and the experiencing mind is thrown into new forms in
\nnew circumstances of time, place and environment, the necessary variation of
\nexperience which the very nature of existence in Time and Space demands, cannot
\nbe effectuated. And it is only the process of Death by dissolution and by the
\ndevouring of life by Life, it is only the absence of freedom, the compulsion,
\nthe struggle, the pain, the subjection to something that appears to be Not-Self
\nwhich makes this necessary and salutary change appear terrible and undesirable
\nto our mortal mentality. It is the sense of being devoured, broken up, destroyed
\nor forced away which is the sting of Death and which even the belief in personal
\nsurvival of death cannot wholly abrogate.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nBut this process is a necessity of that mutual devouring which we see to be the
\ninitial law of Life in Matter. Life, says the Upanishad, is Hunger which is
\nDeath, and by this Hunger which is Death, aś<\/font>anā<\/font>yā<\/font>mrtyuh<\/i>,
\nthe material world has been created. For Life here assumes as its mould material
\nsubstance, and material substance is Being infinitely divided and seeking
\ninfinitely to aggregate itself; between these two impulses of infinite division
\nand infinite aggregation the material existence of the universe is constituted.
\nThe attempt of the individual, the living atom, to maintain and aggrandise
\nitself is the whole sense of Desire; a physical, vital, moral, mental increase
\nby a more and more all-embracing experience, a more and more all-embracing
\npossession, absorption, assimilation, enjoyment is the inevitable, fundamental,
\nineradicable impulse of Existence, once divided and individualised, yet ever
\nsecretly conscious of its all-embracing, all-possessing infinity. The impulse to
\nrealise that secret consciousness is the spur of the cosmic Divine, the lust of
\nthe embodied Self within every individual creature; and it is inevitable, just,
\nsalutary that it should seek to realise it first in the terms of life by an
\nincreasing growth and expansion. In the physical world this can only be done by
\nfeeding on the environment, by aggrandising oneself through the absorption of
\nothers or of what is possessed by others; and this necessity is the universal
\njustification of Hunger in all its forms. Still what devours must also be
\ndevoured; for the law of interchange, of action and reaction, of limited
\ncapacity and therefore of a final\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-194<\/p>\n

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

\n

\nexhaustion and succumbing governs all life in the physical world.\n<\/p>\n

    
\nIn the conscious mind that which was still only a vital hunger in subconscious
\nlife, transforms itself into higher forms; hunger in the vital parts becomes
\ncraving of Desire in the mentalised life, straining of Will in the intellectual
\nor thinking life. This movement of desire must and ought to continue until the
\nindividual has grown sufficiently so that he can now at last become master of
\nhimself and by increasing union with the Infinite possessor of this universe.
\nDesire is the lever by which the divine Life-principle effects its end of
\nself-affirmation in the universe and the attempt to extinguish it in the
\ninterests of inertia is a denial of the divine Life-principle, a Will-not-to-be
\nwhich is necessarily ignorance; for one cannot cease to be individually except
\nby being infinitely. Desire too can only cease rightly by becoming the desire of
\nthe infinite and satisfying itself with a supernal fulfilment and an infinite
\nsatisfaction in the all-possessing bliss of the Infinite. Meanwhile it has to
\nprogress from the type of a mutually devouring hunger to the type of a mutual
\ngiving, of an increasingly joyous sacrifice of interchange;\u2014the individual gives
\nhimself to other individuals and receives them back in exchange; the lower gives
\nitself to the higher and the higher to the lower so that they may be fulfilled
\nin each other; the human gives itself to the Divine and the Divine to the human;
\nthe All in the individual gives itself to the All in the universe and receives
\nits realised universality as a divine recompense. Thus the law of Hunger must
\ngive place progressively to the law of Love, the law of Division to the law of
\nUnity, the law of Death to the law of Immortality. Such is the necessity, such
\nthe justification, such the culmination and self-fulfilment of the Desire that
\nis at work in the universe.<\/p>\n

     
\nAs this mask of Death which Life assumes results from the movement of the finite
\nseeking to affirm its immortality, so Desire is the impulse of the Force of
\nBeing individualised in Life to affirm progressively in the terms of succession
\nin Time and of self-extension in Space, in the framework of the finite, its
\ninfinite Bliss, the Ananda of Sachchidananda. The mask of Desire which that
\nimpulse assumes comes directly from the third phenomenon of Life, its law of
\nincapacity. Life is an infinite Force working\n<\/p>\n

    
\nPage-195<\/p>\n

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

\n

in
\nthe terms of the finite; inevitably, throughout its overt individualised action
\nin the finite its omnipotence must appear and act as a limited capacity and a
\npartial impotence, although behind every act of the individual, however weak,
\nhowever futile, however stumbling, there must be the whole superconscious and
\nsubconscious presence of infinite omnipotent Force; without that presence behind
\nit no least single movement in the cosmos can happen; into its sum of universal
\naction each single act and movement falls by the fiat of the omnipotent
\nomniscience which works as the Supermind inherent in things. But the
\nindividualised life-force is to its own consciousness limited and full of
\nincapacity; for it has to work not only against the mass of other environing
\nindividualised life-forces, but also subject to control and denial by the
\ninfinite Life itself with whose total will and trend its own will and trend may
\nnot immediately agree. Therefore limitation of force, phenomenon of incapacity
\nis the third of the three characteristics of individualised and divided Life. On
\nthe other hand, the impulse of self-enlargement and all-possession remains and
\nit does not and is not meant to measure or limit itself by the limit of its
\npresent force or capacity. Hence from the gulf between the impulse to possess
\nand the force of possession desire arises; for if there were no such
\ndiscrepancy, if the force could always take possession of its object, always
\nattain securely its end, desire would not come into existence but only a calm
\nand self-possessed Will without craving such as is the Will of the Divine.<\/p>\n

     
\nIf the individualised force were the energy of a mind free from ignorance, no
\nsuch limitation, no such necessity of desire would intervene. For a mind not
\nseparated from Supermind, a mind of divine knowledge would know the intention,
\nscope and inevitable result of its every act and would not crave or struggle but
\nput forth an assured force self-limited to the immediate object in view. It
\nwould, even in stretching beyond the present, even in undertaking movements not
\nintended to succeed immediately, yet not be subject to desire or limitation. For
\nthe failures also of the Divine are acts of its omniscient omnipotence which
\nknows the right time and circumstance for the incipience, the vicissitudes, the
\nimmediate and the final results of all its cosmic\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-196<\/p>\n

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

\n

\nundertakings. The mind of knowledge, being in unison with the divine Supermind,
\nwould participate in this omniscience and this all-determining power. But, as we
\nhave seen, individualised life-force here is an energy of individualising and
\nignorant Mind, Mind that has fallen from the knowledge of its own Supermind.
\nTherefore incapacity is necessary to its relations in Life and inevitable in the
\nnature of things; for the practical omnipotence of an ignorant force even in a
\nlimited sphere is unthinkable, since in that sphere such a force would set
\nitself against the working of the divine and omniscient omnipotence and unfix
\nthe fixed purpose of things,\u2014an impossible cosmic situation. The struggle of
\nlimited forces increasing their capacity by that struggle under the driving
\nimpetus of instinctive or conscious desire is therefore the first law of Life.
\nAs with desire, so with this strife; it must rise into a mutually helpful trial
\nof strength, a conscious wrestling of brother forces in which the victor and
\nvanquished or rather that which influences by action from above and that which
\ninfluences by retort of action from below must equally gain and increase. And
\nthis again has eventually to become the happy shock of divine interchange, the
\nstrenuous clasp of Love replacing the convulsive clasp of strife. Still, strife
\nis the necessary and salutary beginning. Death, Desire and Strife are the
\ntrinity of divided living, the triple mask of the divine Life-principle in its
\nfirst essay of cosmic self-affirmation.<\/p>\n

 Page-197<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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