{"id":641,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=641"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:25","slug":"10-the-pure-existent-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\/10-the-pure-existent-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-10_The Pure Existent.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

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


\n\t\tThe Pure Existent<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

             
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\n    <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOne indivisible that is pure existence.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

    W<\/b>hen we withdraw our gaze
\nfrom its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and
\nlook upon the world with
\ndispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our
\nfirst result is the perception of a boundless energy of
\ninfinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself
\nout in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that
\nsurpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in
\nwhose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but
\nthe dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads
\ncount only as a petty swarm. We instinctively act
\nand feel and weave our life thoughts as if this stupendous world
\nmovement were at work around us as centre and for our
\nbenefit, for our help or harm, or as if the justification of our
\negoistic cravings, emotions, ideas, standards were its proper
\nbusiness even as they are our own chief concern. When we begin to see,
\nwe perceive that it exists for itself, not for us, has
\nits own gigantic aims, its own complex and boundless idea, its own vast
\ndesire or delight that it seeks to fulfil, its own
\nimmense and formidable standards which look down as if with an
\nindulgent and ironic smile at the pettiness of ours. And yet
\nlet us not swing over to the other extreme and form too positive an
\nidea of our own insignificance. That too would be an act
\nof ignorance and the shutting of our eyes to the great facts of the
\nuniverse.\n<\/p>\n

     For this boundless Movement
\ndoes not regard us as unimportant to it. Science reveals to us how
\nminute is the care, how
\ncunning the device, how intense the absorption it bestows upon the
\nsmallest of its works even as on the largest. This mighty
\nenergy is an equal and impartial mother, samam Brahma<\/span>, in the great term of the Gita, and its intensity and force of
\nmovement is the same in the formation and upholding of a system of suns and\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n     
\n\u00b9<\/font> Vl. 2. 1<\/font>.<\/p>\n

 Page-71<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

the organisation of the life of an ant-hill. It is
\nthe illusion of size, of quantity that induces us to look on the one as
\ngreat, the
\nother as petty. If we look, on the contrary, not at mass of quantity
\nbut force of quality, we shall say that the ant is greater
\nthan the solar system it inhabits and man greater than all inanimate
\nNature put together. But this again is the illusion of
\nquality. When we go behind and examine only the intensity of the
\nmovement of which quality and quantity are aspects, we
\nrealise that this Brahman dwells equally in all existences. Equally
\npartaken of by all in its being, we are tempted to say,
\nequally distributed to all in its energy. But this too is an illusion
\nof quantity. Brahman dwells in all, indivisible, yet as if divided
\nand distributed. If we look again with an observing perception not
\ndominated by intellectual concepts, but informed by
\nintuition and culminating in knowledge by identity, we shall see that
\nthe consciousness of this infinite Energy is other than our
\nmental consciousness, that it is indivisible and gives, not an equal
\npart of itself, but its whole self at one and the same time to
\nthe solar system and to the ant-hill. To Brahman there are no whole and
\nparts, but each thing is all itself and benefits by the
\nwhole of Brahman. Quality and quantity differ, the self is equal. The
\nform and manner and result of the force of action vary
\ninfinitely, but the eternal, primal, infinite energy is the same in
\nall. The force of strength that goes to make the strong man is
\nno whit greater than the force of weakness that goes to make the weak.
\nThe energy spent is as great in repression as in
\nexpression, in negation as in affirmation, in silence as in sound.\n<\/p>\n

     Therefore the first
\nreckoning we have to mend is that between this infinite Movement, this
\nenergy of existence which is
\nthe world and ourselves. At present we keep a false account. We are
\ninfinitely important to the All, but to us the All is
\nnegligible; we alone are important to ourselves. This is the sign of
\nthe original ignorance which is the root of the ego, that it
\ncan only think with itself as centre as if it were the All, and of that
\nwhich is not itself accepts only so much as it is mentally
\ndisposed to acknowledge or as it is forced to recognise by the shocks
\nof its environment. Even when it begins to
\nphilosophise, does it not assert that the world only exists in and by
\nits consciousness? Its own\n<\/p>\n

    
\nPage-72<\/p>\n

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

\n

state of consciousness or mental standards are to it the test of reality; all outside its orbit or view tends to become false or
\nnon-existent. This mental self-sufficiency of man creates a system of false accountantship which prevents us from drawing
\nthe right and full value from life. There is a sense in which these pretensions of the human mind and ego repose on a truth,
\nbut this truth only emerges when the mind has learned its ignorance and the ego has submitted to the All and lost in it its
\nseparate self-assertion. To recognise that we, or rather the results and appearances we call ourselves, are only a partial
\nmovement of this infinite Movement and that it is that infinite which we have to know, to be consciously and to fulfil
\nfaithfully, is the commencement of true living. To recognise that in our true selves we are one with the total movement and
\nnot minor or subordinate is the other side of the account, and its expression in the manner of our being, thought, emotion and
\naction is necessary to the culmination of a true or divine living.\n<\/p>\n

     But to settle the account
\nwe have to know what is this All, this infinite and omnipotent energy.
\nAnd here we come to a
\nfresh complication. For it is asserted to us by the pure reason and it
\nseems to be asserted to us by Vedanta that as we are
\nsubordinate and an aspect of this Movement, so the movement is
\nsubordinate and an aspect of something other than itself,
\nof a great timeless, spaceless Stability, sthā<\/font>nu,<\/i>
\nwhich is immutable, inexhaustible and unexpended, not acting though
\ncontaining all this action, not energy, but pure existence. Those who
\nsee only this world-energy can declare indeed that there
\nis no such thing: our idea of an eternal stability, an immutable pure
\nexistence is a fiction of our intellectual conceptions
\nstarting from a false idea of the stable: for there is nothing that is
\nstable; all is movement and our conception of the stable is
\nonly an artifice of our mental consciousness by which we secure a
\nstandpoint for dealing practically with the movement. It
\nis easy to show that this is true in the movement itself. There is
\nnothing there that is stable. All that appears to be stationary
\nis only a block of movement, a formulation of energy at work which so
\naffects our consciousness that it seems to be still,
\nsomewhat as the earth seems to us to be still, somewhat as a train in
\nwhich we are travelling seems to be<\/p>\n

\nPage-73<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

still in the midst of a rushing landscape. But is it equally true that underlying this movement, supporting it, there is nothing
\nthat is moveless and immutable? Is it true that existence consists only in the action of energy? Or is it not rather that energy
\nis an output of Existence?\n<\/p>\n

     We see at once that if such
\nan Existence is, it must be, like the Energy, infinite. Neither reason
\nnor experience nor
\nintuition nor imagination bears witness to us of the possibility of a
\nfinal terminus. All end and beginning presuppose
\nsomething beyond the end or beginning. An absolute end, an absolute
\nbeginning is not only a contradiction in terms, but a
\ncontradiction of the essence of things, a violence, a fiction. Infinity
\nimposes itself upon the appearances of the finite by its ineffugable
\nself-existence.\n<\/p>\n

     But this is infinity with
\nregard to Time and Space, an eternal duration, interminable extension.
\nThe pure Reason goes
\nfarther and looking in its own colourless and austere light at Time and
\nSpace points out that these two are categories of our
\nconsciousness, conditions under which we arrange our perception of
\nphenomenon. When we look at existence in itself, Time
\nand Space disappear. If there is any extension, it is not a spatial but
\na psychological extension; if there is any duration, it is
\nnot a temporal but a psychological duration; and it is then easy to see
\nthat this extension and duration are only symbols
\nwhich represent to the mind something not translatable into
\nintellectual terms, an eternity which seems to us the same
\nall-containing ever-new moment, an infinity which seems to us the same
\nall-containing all-pervading point without
\nmagnitude. And this conflict of terms, so violent, yet accurately
\nexpressive of something we do perceive, shows that mind
\nand speech have passed beyond their natural limits and are striving to
\nexpress a Reality in which their own conventions and
\nnecessary oppositions disappear into an ineffable identity.\n<\/p>\n

     But is this a true record?
\nMay it not be that Time and Space so disappear merely because the
\nexistence we are
\nregarding is a fiction of the intellect, a fantastic Nihil created by
\nspeech, which we strive to erect into a conceptual reality?
\nWe regard again that Existence-in-itself and we say, No. There is
\nsomething behind the phenomenon not only infinite but
\nindefinable. Of no<\/p>\n

 Page-74<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

phenomenon, of no totality of phenomena can we say that absolutely it is. Even if we reduce all phenomena to one
\nfundamental, universal irreducible phenomenon of movement or energy, we get only an indefinable phenomenon. The very
\nconception of movement carries with it the potentiality of repose and betrays itself as an activity of some existence; the very
\nidea of energy in action carries with it the idea of energy abstaining from action; and an absolute energy not in action is
\nsimply and purely absolute existence. We have only these two alternatives, either an indefinable pure existence or an
\nindefinable energy in action and, if the latter alone is true, without any stable base or cause, then the energy is a result and
\nphenomenon generated by the action, the movement which alone is. We have then no Existence, or we have the Nihil of the
\nBuddhists with existence as only an attribute of an eternal phenomenon, of Action, of Karma, of Movement. This, asserts
\nthe pure reason, leaves my perceptions unsatisfied, contradicts my fundamental seeing, and therefore cannot be. For it
\nbrings us to a last abruptly ceasing stair of an ascent which leaves the whole staircase without support, suspended in the
\nVoid.\n<\/p>\n

     If this indefinable,
\ninfinite, timeless, spaceless Existence is, it is necessarily a pure
\nabsolute. It cannot be summed up in
\nany quantity or quantities, it cannot be composed of any quality or
\ncombination of qualities. It is not an aggregate of forms or
\na formal substratum of forms. If all forms, quantities, qualities were
\nto disappear, this would remain. Existence without
\nquantity, without quality, without form is not only conceivable, but it
\nis the one thing we can conceive behind these
\nphenomena. Necessarily, when we say it is without them, we mean that it
\nexceeds them, that it is something into which they
\npass in such a way as to cease to be what we call form, quality,
\nquantity and out of which they emerge as form, quality and
\nquantity in the movement. They do not pass away into one form, one
\nquality, one quantity which is the basis of all the
\nrest,—for there is none such,—but into something which cannot be
\ndefined by any of these terms. So all things that are
\nconditions and appearances of the movement pass into That from which
\nthey have come and there, so far as they exist,
\nbecome something that can no\n<\/p>\n

    
\nPage-75<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 longer be described by the terms that are appropriate to them in the movement. Therefore we say that the pure existence is
\nan Absolute and in itself unknowable by our thought although we can go back to it in a supreme identity that transcends the
\nterms of knowledge. The movement, on the contrary, is the field of the relative and yet by the very definition of the relative
\nall things in the movement contain, are contained in and are the Absolute. The relation of the phenomena of Nature to the
\nfundamental ether which is contained in them, constitutes them, contains them and yet is so different from them that
\nentering into it they cease to be what they now are, is the illustration given by the Vedanta as most nearly representing this
\nidentity in difference between the Absolute and the relative.<\/p>\n

     
\nNecessarily, when we speak of things passing into that from which they have come, we are using the language of our
\ntemporal consciousness and must guard ourselves against its illusions. The emergence of the movement from the Immutable
\nis an eternal phenomenon and it is only because we cannot conceive it in that beginningless, endless, ever-new moment
\nwhich is the eternity of the Timeless that our notions and perceptions are compelled to place it in a temporal eternity of
\nsuccessive duration to which are attached the ideas of an always recurrent beginning, middle and end.\n<\/p>\n

     But all this, it may be
\nsaid, is valid only so long as we accept the concepts of pure reason
\nand remain subject to them.
\nBut the concepts of reason have no obligatory force. We must judge of
\nexistence not by what we mentally conceive, but by
\nwhat we see to exist. And the purest, freest form of insight into
\nexistence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two
\nthings alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former
\nobjective, the latter subjective. Extension is real,
\nduration is real, Space and Time are real. Even if we can go behind
\nextension in Space and perceive it as a psychological
\nphenomenon, as an attempt of the mind to make existence manageable by
\ndistributing the indivisible whole in a conceptual
\nSpace, yet we cannot go behind the movement of succession and change in
\nTime. For that is the very stuff of our
\nconsciousness. We are and the world is a movement that continually
\nprogresses and\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-76 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

increases by the inclusion of all the successions of the past in a present which represents itself to us as the beginning of all
\nthe successions of the future,—a beginning, a present that always eludes us because it is not, for it has perished before it is
\nborn. What is, is the eternal, indivisible succession of Time carrying on its stream a progressive movement of consciousness
\nalso indivisible.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

Duration then, eternally successive movement and change in Time, is the sole absolute. Becoming is the only being.\n<\/p>\n

     In reality, this opposition
\nof actual insight into being to the conceptual fictions of the pure
\nReason is fallacious. If indeed
\nintuition in this matter were really opposed to intelligence, we could
\nnot confidently support a merely conceptual reasoning
\nagainst fundamental insight. But this appeal to intuitive experience is
\nincomplete. It is valid only so far as it proceeds and it
\nerrs by stopping short of the integral experience. So long as the
\nintuition fixes itself only upon that which we become, we
\nsee ourselves as a continual progression of movement and change in
\nconsciousness in the eternal succession of Time. We
\nare the river, the flame of the Buddhist illustration. But there is a
\nsupreme experience and supreme intuition by which we go
\nback behind our surface self and find that this becoming, change,
\nsuccession are only a mode of our being and that there is
\nthat in us which is not involved at all in the becoming. Not only can
\nwe have the intuition of this that is stable and eternal in
\nus, not only can we have the glimpse of it in experience behind the
\nveil of continually fleeting becomings, but we can draw
\nback into it and live in it entirely, so effecting an entire change in
\nour external life, and in our attitude, and in our action upon
\nthe movement of the world. And this stability in which we can so live
\nis precisely that which the pure Reason has already
\ngiven us, although it can be arrived at without reasoning at all,
\nwithout knowing previously what it is,—it is pure existence,
\neternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by the succession of Time,
\nnot involved<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     \u00b9<\/font>Indivisible
\nin the totality of the movement. Each moment of Time or Consciousness may be
\nconsidered as separate from its predecessor and successor, each successive
\naction of Energy as a new quantum or new creation; but this does not abrogate
\ncontinuity without which there would be no duration of Time or coherence of
\nconsciousness. A man’s steps as he walks or runs or leaps are separate, but
\nthere is something that takes the steps and makes the movement continuous.<\/font><\/p>\n

    
\n Page-77<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

in the extension of Space, beyond form, quantity, quality,—Self only and absolute.\n<\/p>\n

     The pure existent is then a
\nfact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us
\nhasten to add, the
\nmovement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The
\nsupreme intuition and its corresponding experience
\nmay correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish
\nit. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure
\nexistence and of world-existence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming.
\nTo deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the
\nfacts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and
\nfruitful wisdom.\n<\/p>\n

     Stability and movement, we
\nmust remember, are only our psychological representations of the
\nAbsolute, even as are
\noneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as
\nit is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its
\neternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself
\ninfinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and
\nmultitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which
\nmultiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view:
\nit leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is
\nand ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of
\nthe dancing.<\/p>\n

     
\nBut as we cannot describe or think out the Absolute in itself, beyond stability and movement, beyond unity and
\nmultitude,—nor is that at all our business,—we must accept the double fact, admit both Shiva and Kali and seek to know
\nwhat is this measureless Movement in Time and Space with regard to that timeless and spaceless pure Existence, one and
\nstable, to which measure and measurelessness are inapplicable. We have seen what pure Reason, intuition and experience
\nhave to say about pure Existence, about Sat; what have they to say about Force, about Movement, about Shakti?\n<\/p>\n

     And the first thing we have
\nto ask ourselves is whether that Force is simply force, simply an
\nunintelligent energy of
\nmovement or whether the consciousness which seems to emerge out of it
\nin this material world we live in, is not merely one
\nof its phenomenal results but rather its own true and secret nature. In
\nVedantic terms, is Force simply Prakriti, only a
\nmovement of\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-78<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 action and process, or is Prakriti really power of
\nChit, in its nature force of creative self-conscience? On this essential problem
\nall the rest hinges. <\/p>\n

\nPage-79<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER  IX The Pure Existent                                                                                          …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","wpcat-13-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}