{"id":636,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=636"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:23","slug":"07-man-in-the-universe-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\/07-man-in-the-universe-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-07_Man in the Universe .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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


\n\t\tMan in the Universe<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

The Soul of man, a traveller, wanders in this cycle of Brahman, huge, a totality of lives, a totality of states, thinking itself
\ndifferent from the Impeller of the journey. Accepted by Him, it attains its goal of Immortality. <\/font><\/p>\n

  
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\nSwetaswatara Upanishad.\u00b9<\/font>  <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font> progressive revelation of a great, a transcendent, a luminous Reality with the multitudinous relativities of this world that
\nwe see and those other worlds that we do not see as means and material, condition and field, this would seem then to be the
\nmeaning of the universe,—since meaning and aim it has and is neither a purposeless illusion nor a fortuitous accident. For
\nthe same reasoning which leads us to conclude that world-existence is not a deceptive trick of Mind, justifies equally the
\ncertainty that it is no blindly and helplessly self-existent mass of separate phenomenal existences clinging together and
\nstruggling together as best they can in their orbit through eternity, no tremendous self-creation and self-impulsion of an
\nignorant Force without any secret Intelligence within aware of its starting-point and its goal and guiding its process and its
\nmotion. An existence, wholly self-aware and therefore entirely master of itself, possesses the phenomenal being in which it
\nis involved, realises itself in form, unfolds itself in the individual.\n<\/p>\n

     That luminous Emergence is
\nthe dawn which the Aryan forefathers worshipped. Its fulfilled
\nperfection is that highest
\nstep of the world-pervading Vishnu which they beheld as if an eye of
\nvision extended in the purest heavens of the Mind. For
\nit exists already as an all-revealing and all-guiding Truth of things
\nwhich watches over the world and attracts mortal man,
\nfirst without the knowledge of his conscious mind, by the general march
\nof Nature, but at last consciously by a progressive
\nawakening and self-enlargement, to his divine ascension. The ascent to
\nthe divine Life is the human journey, the Work of
\nworks, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in
\nthe world and the\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\n\t\t1<\/sup>  I. 6<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage -42 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tjustification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck
\nof surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.\n<\/p>\n

     This Truth of things that
\nhas to emerge out of the phenomenal world’s contradictions is declared
\nto be an infinite Bliss
\nand self-conscious Existence, the same everywhere, in all things, in
\nall times and beyond Time, and aware of itself behind all
\nthese phenomena by whose intensest vibrations of activity or by whose
\nlargest totality it can never be entirely expressed or
\nin any way limited; for it is self-existent and does not depend for its
\nbeing upon its manifestations. They represent it, but do
\nnot exhaust it; point to it, but do not reveal it. It is revealed only
\nto itself within their forms. The conscious existence involved
\nin the form comes, as it evolves, to know itself by intuition, by
\nself-vision, by self-experience. It becomes itself in the world
\nby knowing itself; it knows itself by becoming itself. Thus possessed
\nof itself inwardly, it imparts also to its forms and modes
\nthe conscious delight of Sachchidananda. This becoming of the infinite
\nBliss-Existence-Consciousness in mind and life and
\nbody,—for independent of them it exists eternally,—is the
\ntransfiguration intended and the utility of individual existence.
\nThrough the individual it manifests in relation even as of itself it
\nexists in identity.\n<\/p>\n

     The Unknowable knowing
\nitself as Sachchidananda is the one supreme affirmation of Vedanta; it
\ncontains all the others
\nor on it they depend. This is the one veritable experience that remains
\nwhen all appearances have been accounted for
\nnegatively by the elimination of their shapes and coverings or
\npositively by the reduction of their names and forms to the
\nconstant truth that they contain. For fulfilment of life or for
\ntranscendence of life, and whether purity, calm and freedom in
\nthe spirit be our aim or puissance, joy and perfection, Sachchidananda
\nis the unknown, omnipresent, indispensable term for which the human
\nconsciousness, whether in knowledge and sentiment or in sensation and
\naction, is eternally seeking. <\/p>\n

      The universe and the
\nindividual are the two essential appearances into which the Unknowable descends
\nand through which it has to be approached; for other intermediate collectivities
\nare <\/p>\n

\nPage- 43<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

born only of their interaction. This descent of the supreme Reality is in its nature a self-concealing; and in the descent there
\nare successive levels, in the concealing successive veils. Necessarily, the revelation takes the form of an ascent; and
\nnecessarily also the ascent and the revelation are both progressive. For each successive level in the descent of the Divine is
\nto man a stage in an ascension; each veil that hides the unknown God becomes for the God-lover and God-seeker an
\ninstrument of His unveiling. Out of the rhythmic slumber of material Nature unconscious of the Soul and the Idea that
\nmaintain the ordered activities of her energy even in her dumb and mighty material trance, the world struggles into the more
\nquick, varied and disordered rhythm of Life labouring on the verges of self-consciousness. Out of Life it struggles upward
\ninto Mind in which the unit becomes awake to itself and its world, and in that awakening the universe gains the leverage it
\nrequired for its supreme work, it gains self-conscious individuality. But Mind takes up the work to continue, not to complete
\nit. It is a labourer of acute but limited intelligence who takes the confused materials offered by Life and, having improved,
\nadapted, varied, classified according to its power, hands them over to the supreme Artist of our divine manhood. That Artist
\ndwells in Supermind; for Supermind is Superman. Therefore our world has yet to climb beyond Mind to a higher principle, a
\nhigher status, a higher dynamism in which universe and individual become aware of and possess that which they both are
\nand therefore stand explained to each other, in harmony with each other, unified.\n<\/p>\n

     The disorders of life and
\nmind cease by discerning the secret of a more perfect order than the
\nphysical. Matter below
\nlife and mind contains in itself the balance between a perfect poise of
\ntranquillity and the action of an immeasurable energy, but does not
\npossess that which it contains. Its peace wears the dull mask of an
\nobscure inertia, a sleep of unconsciousness or rather of a drugged and
\nimprisoned consciousness. Driven by a force which is its real self but
\nwhose sense it cannot yet seize nor share, it has not the awakened joy
\nof its own harmonious energies. <\/p>\n

     Life and mind awaken to the sense of
\nthis want in the form<\/p>\n

\n Page-44<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

of a striving and seeking ignorance and a troubled
\nand baffled desire which are the first steps towards self-knowledge and
\nself-fulfilment. But where then is the kingdom of their
\nself-fulfilling? It comes to them by the exceeding of themselves.
\nBeyond life and mind we recover consciously in its divine truth that
\nwhich the balance of material Nature grossly
\nrepresented,—a tranquillity which is neither inertia nor a sealed
\ntrance of consciousness but the concentration of an absolute
\nforce and an absolute self-awareness, and an action of immeasurable
\nenergy which is at the same time an out-thrilling of
\nineffable bliss because its every act is the expression, not of a want
\nand an ignorant straining, but of an absolute peace and
\nself-mastery. In that attainment our ignorance realises the light of
\nwhich it was a darkened or a partial reflection; our desires
\ncease in the plenitude and fulfilment towards which even in their most
\nbrute material forms they were an obscure and fallen
\naspiration.\n<\/p>\n

     The universe and the
\nindividual are necessary to each other in their ascent. Always indeed
\nthey exist for each other and
\nprofit by each other. Universe is a diffusion of the divine All in
\ninfinite Space and Time, the individual its concentration
\nwithin limits of Space and Time. Universe seeks in infinite extension
\nthe divine totality it feels itself to be but cannot entirely realise;
\nfor in extension existence drives at a pluralistic sum of itself which
\ncan neither be the primal nor the final unit, but
\nonly a recurring decimal without end or beginning. Therefore it creates
\nin itself a self-conscious concentration of the All
\nthrough which it can aspire. In the conscious individual Prakriti turns
\nback to perceive Purusha, World seeks after Self; God
\nhaving entirely become Nature, Nature seeks to become progressively God.<\/p>\n

     
\nOn the other hand, it is by means of the universe that the individual is impelled to realise himself. Not only is it his
\nfoundation, his means, his field, the stuff of the divine Work; but also, since the concentration of the universal Life which he
\nis takes place within limits and is not like the intensive unity of Brahman free from all conception of bound and term, he must
\nnecessarily universalise and impersonalise himself in order to manifest the divine All which is his reality. Yet is he called
\nupon to preserve, even when he most extends himself in universality of\n<\/p>\n

\nPage 45<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

consciousness, a mysterious transcendent something of which his sense of personality gives him an obscure and egoistic
\nrepresentation. Otherwise he has missed his goal, the problem set to him has not been solved, the divine work for which he
\naccepted birth has not been done.\n<\/p>\n

     The universe comes to the
\nindividual as Life,—a dynamism the entire secret of which he has to
\nmaster and a mass of
\ncolliding results, a whirl of potential energies out of which he has to
\ndisengage some supreme order and some yet unrealised
\nharmony. This is after all the real sense of man’s progress. It is not
\nmerely a restatement in slightly different terms of what
\nphysical Nature has already accomplished. Nor can the ideal of human
\nlife be simply the animal repeated on a higher scale
\nof mentality. Otherwise, any system or order which assured a tolerable
\nwell-being and a moderate mental satisfaction would
\nhave stayed our advance. The animal is satisfied with a modicum of
\nnecessity; the gods are content with their splendours.
\nBut man cannot rest permanently until he reaches some highest good. He
\nis the greatest of living beings because he is the
\nmost discontented, because he feels most the pressure of limitations.
\nHe alone, perhaps, is capable of being seized by the
\ndivine frenzy for a remote ideal.\n<\/p>\n

     To the Life-Spirit,
\ntherefore, the individual in whom its potentialities centre is
\npre-eminently Man, the Purusha. It is the
\nSon of Man who is supremely capable of incarnating God. This Man is the
\nManu, the thinker, the Manomaya Purusha,
\nmental person or soul in mind of the ancient sages. No mere superior
\nmammal is he, but a conceptive soul basing itself on
\nthe animal body in Matter. He is conscious Name or Numen accepting and
\nutilising form as a medium through which Person
\ncan deal with substance. The animal life emerging out of Matter is only
\nthe inferior term of his existence. The life of
\nthought, feeling, will, conscious impulsion, that which we name in its
\ntotality Mind, that which strives to seize upon Matter
\nand its vital energies and subject them to the law of its own
\nprogressive transformation, is the middle term in which he takes
\nhis effectual station. But there is equally a supreme term which Mind
\nin man searches after so that having found he may
\naffirm it in his mental\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-46<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

and bodily existence. This practical affirmation of
\nsomething essentially superior to his present self is the basis of the
\ndivine
\nlife in the human being.\n<\/p>\n

     Awakened to a profounder
\nself-knowledge than his first mental idea of himself, Man begins to
\nconceive some formula
\nand to perceive some appearance of the thing that he has to affirm. But
\nit appears to him as if poised between two
\nnegations of itself. If, beyond his present attainment, he perceives or
\nis touched by the power, light, bliss of a self-conscious
\ninfinite existence and translates his thought or his experience of it
\ninto terms convenient for his mentality,—Infinity,
\nOmniscience, Omnipotence, Immortality, Freedom, Love, Beatitude,
\nGod,—yet does this sun of his seeing appear to shine
\nbetween a double Night,—a darkness below, a mightier darkness beyond.
\nFor when he strives to know it utterly, it seems to
\npass into something which neither any one of these terms nor the sum of
\nthem can at all represent. His mind at last negates
\nGod for a Beyond, or at least it seems to find God transcending
\nHimself, denying Himself to the conception. Here also, in
\nthe world, in himself, and around himself, he is met always by the
\nopposites of his affirmation. Death is ever with him,
\nlimitation invests his being and his experience, error, inconscience,
\nweakness, inertia, grief, pain, evil are constant oppressors
\nof his effort. Here also he is driven to deny God, or at least the
\nDivine seems to negate or to hide itself in some appearance
\nor outcome which is other than its true and eternal reality.<\/p>\n

     
\nAnd the terms of this denial are not, like that other and remoter negation, inconceivable and therefore naturally
\nmysterious, unknowable to his mind, but appear to be knowable, known, definite,—and still mysterious. He knows not what
\nthey are, why they exist, how they came into being. He sees their processes as they affect and appear to him; he cannot
\nfathom their essential reality.\n<\/p>\n

     Perhaps they are
\nunfathomable, perhaps they also are really unknowable in their essence?
\nOr, it may be, they have no
\nessential reality,—are an illusion, Asat, non-being. The superior
\nNegation appears to us sometimes as a Nihil, a
\nNon-Existence; this inferior negation may also be, in its essence, a
\nNihil, a non-\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-47<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

existence. But as we have already put away from us
\nthis evasion of the difficulty with regard to that higher, so also we
\ndiscard it for this inferior Asat. To deny entirely its reality or to
\nseek an escape from it as a mere disastrous illusion is to put
\naway from us the problem and to shun our work. For Life, these things
\nthat seem to deny God, to be the opposites of
\nSachchidananda, are real, even if they turn out to be temporary. They
\nand their opposites, good, knowledge, joy, pleasure,
\nlife, survival, strength, power, increase, are the very material of her
\nworkings.\n<\/p>\n

     It is probable indeed that
\nthey are the result or rather the inseparable accompaniments, not of an
\nillusion, but of a wrong
\nrelation, wrong because it is founded on a false view of what the
\nindividual is in the universe and therefore a false attitude
\nboth towards God and Nature, towards self and environment. Because that
\nwhich he has become is out of harmony both
\nwith what the world of his habitation is and what he himself should be
\nand is to be, therefore man is subject to these
\ncontradictions of the secret Truth of things. In that case they are not
\nthe punishment of a fall, but the conditions of a
\nprogress. They are the first elements of the work he has to fulfil, the
\nprice he has to pay for the crown which he hopes to
\nwin, the narrow way by which Nature escapes out of Matter into
\nconsciousness; they are at once her ransom and her
\nstock.<\/p>\n

     For out of these false
\nrelations and by their aid the true have to be found. By the Ignorance
\nwe have to cross over
\ndeath. So too the Veda speaks cryptically of energies that are like
\nwomen evil in impulse, wandering from the path, doing
\nhurt to their Lord, which yet, though themselves false and unhappy,
\nbuild up in the end “this vast Truth”, the Truth that is the
\nBliss. It would be, then, not when he has excised the evil in Nature
\nout of himself by an act of moral surgery or parted with
\nlife by an abhorrent recoil, but when he has turned Death into a more
\nperfect life, lifted the small things of the human
\nlimitation into the great things of the divine vastness, transformed
\nsuffering into beatitude, converted evil into its proper good,
\ntranslated error and falsehood into their secret truth that the
\nsacrifice will be accomplished, the journey done and Heaven
\nand Earth equalised join hands in the bliss of the Supreme.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n   Page-48<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

    <\/p>\n

Yet how can such contraries pass into each other? By what alchemy shall this lead of mortality be turned into that gold
\nof divine Being? But if they are not in their essence contraries? If they are manifestations of one Reality, identical in
\nsubstance? Then indeed a divine transmutation becomes conceivable.\n<\/p>\n

     We have seen that the
\nNon-Being beyond may well be an inconceivable existence and perhaps an
\nineffable Bliss. At
\nleast the Nirvana of Buddhism which formulated one most luminous effort
\nof man to reach and to rest in this highest
\nNon-Existence, represents itself in the psychology of the liberated yet
\nupon earth as an unspeakable peace and gladness; its
\npractical effect is the extinction of all suffering through the
\ndisappearance of all egoistic idea or sensation and the nearest
\nwe can get to a positive conception of it is that it is some
\ninexpressible Beatitude (if the name or any name can be applied to
\na peace so void of contents) into which even the notion of
\nself-existence seems to be swallowed up and disappear. It is a
\nSachchidananda to which we dare no longer apply even the supreme terms
\nof Sat, of Chit and of Ananda. For all terms are
\nannulled and all cognitive experience is overpassed.\n<\/p>\n

     On the other hand, we have
\nhazarded the suggestion that since all is one Reality, this inferior
\nnegation also, this other
\ncontradiction or non-existence of Sachchidananda is none other than
\nSachchidananda itself. It is capable of being conceived
\nby the intellect, perceived in the vision, even received through the
\nsensations as verily that which it seems to deny, and such
\nwould it always be to our conscious experience if things were not
\nfalsified by some great fundamental error, some
\npossessing and compelling Ignorance, Maya or Avidya. In this sense a
\nsolution might be sought, not perhaps a satisfying metaphysical
\nsolution for the logical mind,—for we are standing on the border-line
\nof the unknowable, the ineffable and straining our eyes beyond,—but a
\nsufficient basis in experience for the practice of the divine life. <\/p>\n

     To do this we must dare to go below
\nthe clear surfaces of things on which the mind loves to dwell, to tempt the vast
\nand obscure, to penetrate the unfathomable depths of consciousness and identify
\nourselves with states of being that are not our own. <\/p>\n

\nPage-49<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Human language is a poor help in such a search, but at least
\nwe may find in it some symbols and figures, return with some just expressible
\nhints which will help the light of the soul and throw upon the mind some
\nreflection of the ineffable design. <\/p>\n

\nPage-50<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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