{"id":645,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=645"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:26","slug":"14-the-divine-maya-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\/14-the-divine-maya-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-14_The Divine Maya .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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

\n\t\t The Divine Maya<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\nBy the Names of the Lord and hers they shaped
\nand measured<\/font><\/p>\n

\nthe force of the Mother of Light; wearing might
\nafter might of  <\/font><\/p>\n

\nthat
\n Force as a robe the lords of Maya shaped out Form in this
\nBeing. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Masters of Maya shaped all by
\nHis Maya; the Fathers who <\/font><\/p>\n

\nhave divine vision set Him
\nwithin as a child that is to be born. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n                                                                                                        Rig Veda.\u00b9<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

     E<\/font><\/b>XISTENCE<\/font>
\nthat acts and creates by the power and from the pure delight of its
\nconscious being is the reality that we are, the
\nself of all our modes and moods, the cause, object and goal of all our
\ndoing, becoming and creating. As the poet, artist or
\nmusician when he creates does really nothing but develop some
\npotentiality in his unmanifested self into a form of
\nmanifestation and as the thinker, statesman, mechanist only bring out
\ninto a shape of things that which lay hidden in
\nthemselves, was themselves, is still themselves when it is cast into
\nform, so is it with the world and the Eternal. All creation
\nor becoming is nothing but this self-manifestation. Out of the seed
\nthere evolves that which is already in the seed,
\npre-existent in being, predestined in its will to become, prearranged
\nin the delight of becoming. The original plasm held in
\nitself in force of being the resultant organism. For it is always that
\nsecret, burdened, self-knowing force which labours under
\nits own irresistible impulse to manifest the form of itself with which
\nit is charged. Only, the individual who creates or
\ndevelops out of himself, makes a distinction between himself, the force
\nthat works in him and the material in which he
\nworks. In reality the force is himself, the individualised
\nconsciousness which it instrumentalises is himself, the material which
\nit uses is himself, the resultant form is himself. In other words it is
\none existence, one force, one delight of being which
\nconcentrates itself at various points, says of each “This is I” and
\nworks in it by a various play of self-force for a various play
\nof self-formation.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       
\n\u00b9 <\/font>III. 38. 7; IX. 83. 3.<\/font><\/p>\n

Page-112 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

     What it produces is itself
\nand can be nothing other than itself; it is working out a play, a
\nrhythm, a development of its
\nown existence, force of consciousness and delight of being. Therefore
\nwhatever comes into the world, seeks nothing but
\nthis, to be, to arrive at the intended form, to enlarge its
\nself-existence in that form, to develop, manifest, increase, realise
\ninfinitely the consciousness and the power that is in it, to have the
\ndelight of coming into manifestation, the delight of the
\nform of being, the delight of the rhythm of consciousness, the delight
\nof the play of force and to aggrandise and perfect that
\ndelight by whatever means is possible, in whatever direction, through
\nwhatever idea of itself may be suggested to it by the
\nExistence, the Conscious-Force, the Delight active within its deepest
\nbeing.\n<\/p>\n

     And if there is any goal,
\nany completeness towards which things tend, it can only be the
\ncompleteness,—in the
\nindividual and in the whole which the individuals constitute,—of its
\nself-existence, of its power and consciousness and of its
\ndelight of being. But such completeness is not possible in the
\nindividual consciousness concentrated within the limits of the
\nindividual formation; absolute completeness is not feasible in the
\nfinite because it is alien to the self-conception of the finite.
\nTherefore the only final goal possible is the emergence of the infinite
\nconsciousness in the individual; it is his recovery of the
\ntruth of himself by self-knowledge and by self-realisation, the truth
\nof the Infinite in being, the Infinite in consciousness, the
\nInfinite in delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which
\nthe finite is only a mask and an instrument for various
\nexpression.\n<\/p>\n

     Thus by the very nature of
\nthe world-play as it has been realised by Sachchidananda in the
\nvastness of His existence
\nextended as Space and Time, we have to conceive first of an involution
\nand a self-absorption of conscious being into the
\ndensity and infinite divisibility of substance, for otherwise there can
\nbe no finite variation; next, an emergence of the
\nself-imprisoned force into formal being, living being, thinking being;
\nand finally a release of the formed thinking being into the
\nfree realisation of itself as the One and the Infinite at play in the
\nworld and by the release its recovery of the boundless
\nexistence-consciousness-bliss that even now it is secretly, really and
\neternally. This triple<\/p>\n

\n Page-113<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

movement is the whole key of the world-enigma.\n<\/p>\n

     It is so that the ancient
\nand eternal truth of Vedanta receives into itself and illumines,
\njustifies and shows us all the
\nmeaning of the modern and phenomenal truth of evolution in the
\nuniverse. And it is so only that this modern truth of
\nevolution which is the old truth of the Universal developing itself
\nsuccessively in Time, seen opaquely through the study of
\nForce and Matter, can find its own full sense and justification,—by
\nilluminating itself with the Light of the ancient and
\neternal truth still preserved for us in the Vedantic Scriptures. To
\nthis mutual self-discovery and self-illumination by the fusion
\nof the old Eastern and the new Western knowledge the thought of the
\nworld is already turning.\n<\/p>\n

     Still, when we have found
\nthat all things are Sachchidananda, all has not yet been explained. We
\nknow the Reality of
\nthe universe, we do not yet know the process by which that Reality has
\nturned itself into this phenomenon. We have the key
\nof the riddle, we have still to find the lock in which it will turn.
\nFor this Existence, Conscious-Force, Delight does not work
\ndirectly or with a sovereign irresponsibility like a magician building
\nup worlds and universes by the mere fiat of its word. We
\nperceive a process, we are aware of a Law.\n<\/p>\n

     It is true that this Law
\nwhen we analyse it, seems to resolve itself into an equilibrium of the
\nplay of forces and a
\ndetermination of that play into fixed lines of working by the accident
\nof development and the habit of past realised energy.
\nBut this apparent and secondary truth is final to us only so long as we
\nconceive of Force solely. When we perceive that
\nForce is a self-expression of Existence, we are bound to perceive also
\nthat this line which Force has taken, corresponds to
\nsome self-truth of that Existence which governs and determines its
\nconstant curve and destination. And since consciousness
\nis the nature of the original Existence and the essence of its Force,
\nthis truth must be a self-perception in Conscious-Being
\nand this determination of the line taken by Force must result from a
\npower of self-directive knowledge inherent in
\nConsciousness which enables it to guide its own Force inevitably along
\nthe logical line of the original self-perception. It is
\nthen a self-determining power in universal consciousness, a capacity in
\nself-awareness of infinite existence to\n<\/p>\n

\n Page-114<\/p>\n

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

\n

perceive a certain Truth in itself and direct its force of creation along the line of that Truth, which has presided over the
\ncosmic manifestation.\n<\/p>\n

     But why should we interpose
\nany special power or faculty between the infinite Consciousness itself
\nand the result of its
\nworkings? May not this Self-awareness of the Infinite range freely
\ncreating forms which afterwards remain in play so long
\nas there is not the fiat that bids them cease,—even as the old Semitic
\nRevelation tells us, “God said, Let there be Light, and
\nthere was Light”? But when we say, “God said, Let there be Light”, we
\nassume the act of a power of consciousness which
\ndetermines light out of everything else that is not light; and when we
\nsay “and there was Light” we presume a directing
\nfaculty, an active power corresponding to the original perceptive
\npower, which brings out the phenomenon and, working out
\nLight according to the line of the original perception, prevents it
\nfrom being overpowered by all the infinite possibilities that
\nare other than itself. Infinite consciousness in its infinite action
\ncan produce only infinite results; to settle upon a fixed Truth
\nor order of truths and build a world in conformity with that which is
\nfixed, demands a selective faculty of knowledge
\ncommissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality.\n<\/p>\n

     This power was known to the
\nVedic seers by the name of Maya. Maya meant for them the power of
\ninfinite
\nconsciousness to comprehend, contain in itself and measure out, that is
\nto say, to form—for form is delimitation—Name and
\nShape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence. It is by
\nMaya that static truth of essential being becomes ordered
\ntruth of active being,—or, to put it in more metaphysical language, out
\nof the supreme being in which all is all without barrier
\nof separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all
\nis in each and each is in all for the play of existence
\nwith existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force,
\ndelight with delight. This play of all in each and each in
\nall is concealed at first from us by the mental play or the illusion of
\nMaya which persuades each that he is in all but not all in
\nhim and that he is in all as a separated being not as a being always
\ninseparably one with the rest of existence. Afterwards
\nwe have to emerge from this\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-115<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

error into the supramental play or the truth of Maya where the “each” and the “all” coexist in the inseparable unity of the
\none truth and the multiple symbol. The lower, present and deluding mental Maya has first to be embraced, then to be
\novercome; for it is God’s play with division and darkness and limitation, desire and strife and suffering in which He subjects
\nHimself to the Force that has come out of Himself and by her obscure suffers Himself to be obscured. That other Maya
\nconcealed by this mental has to be overpassed, then embraced; for it is God’s play of the infinities of existence, the
\nsplendours of knowledge, the glories of force mastered and the ecstasies of love illimitable where He emerges out of the
\nhold of Force, holds her instead and fulfils in her illumined that for which she went out from Him at the first.\n<\/p>\n

     This distinction between
\nthe lower and the higher Maya is the link in thought and in cosmic Fact
\nwhich the pessimistic
\nand illusionist philosophies miss or neglect. To them the mental Maya,
\nor perhaps an Overmind, is the creatrix of the world,
\nand a world created by mental Maya would indeed be an inexplicable
\nparadox and a fixed yet floating nightmare of
\nconscious existence which could neither be classed as an illusion nor
\nas a reality. We have to see that the mind is only an
\nintermediate term between the creative governing knowledge and the soul
\nimprisoned in its works. Sachchidananda,
\ninvolved by one of His lower movements in the self-oblivious absorption
\nof Force that is lost in the form of her own
\nworkings, returns towards Himself out of the self-oblivion; Mind is
\nonly one of His instruments in the descent and the
\nascent. It is an instrument of the descending creation, not the secret
\ncreatrix,—a transitional stage in the ascent, not our high
\noriginal source and the consummate term of cosmic existence. <\/p>\n

   
\nThe philosophies which recognise Mind alone as the creator of the
\nworlds or accept an original principle with Mind as
\nthe only mediator between it and the forms of the universe, may be
\ndivided into the purely noumenal and the idealistic. The
\npurely noumenal recognise in the cosmos only the work of Mind, Thought,
\nIdea: but Idea may be purely arbitrary and have
\nno essential relation to any real Truth of existence; or such Truth,\n<\/p>\n

 Page-116<\/p>\n

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

\n

if it exists, may be regarded as a mere Absolute
\naloof from all relations and irreconcilable with a world of relations.
\nThe
\nidealistic interpretation supposes a relation between the Truth behind
\nand the conceptive phenomenon in front, a relation
\nwhich is not merely that of an antinomy and opposition. The view I am
\npresenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the
\ncreative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force
\nexpressive of real being, born out of real being and
\npartaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of
\nfictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into
\nmutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The
\nworld is therefore not a figment of conception in the
\nuniversal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into
\nforms of itself. A Truth of conscious being supports
\nthese forms and expresses itself in them, and the knowledge
\ncorresponding to the truth thus expressed reigns as a supramental
\nTruth-Consciousness\u00b9<\/font> organising real ideas in a perfect harmony before they are cast into the mental-vital-material mould. Mind, Life and Body
\nare an inferior consciousness and a partial expression which strives to arrive in the mould of a various evolution at that
\nsuperior expression of itself already existent to the Beyond-Mind. That which is in the Beyond-Mind is the ideal which in its
\nown conditions it is labouring to realise.\n<\/p>\n

     From our ascending point of
\nview we may say that the Real is behind all that exists; it expresses
\nitself intermediately in
\nan Ideal which is a harmonised truth of itself; the Ideal throws out a
\nphenomenal reality of variable conscious-being which,
\ninevitably drawn towards its own essential Reality, tries at last to
\nrecover it entirely whether by a violent leap or normally
\nthrough the Ideal which put it forth. It is this that explains the
\nimperfect reality of human existence as seen by the Mind, the
\ninstinctive aspiration in the mental being towards a perfectibility
\never beyond itself, towards the concealed harmony of the
\nIdeal, and the supreme surge of the spirit beyond the ideal to the
\ntranscendental. The very facts of our consciousness, its
\nconstitution and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  <\/font>    
\n\u00b9<\/font> I take the phrase from the Rig Veda,—,rta-cit<\/i>, which means the consciousness of essential truth of being
\n(satyam<\/i>), of ordered truth of active being (rtam<\/i>) and the vast
\nself-awareness (brhat<\/i>) in which alone this
\nconsciousness is possible.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage-117<\/p>\n

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

\n

its necessity presuppose such a triple order; they negate the dual and irreconcilable antithesis of a mere Absolute to a mere
\nrelativity.\n<\/p>\n

     Mind is not sufficient to
\nexplain existence in the universe. Infinite Consciousness must first
\ntranslate itself into infinite
\nfaculty of Knowledge or, as we call it from our point of view,
\nomniscience. But Mind is not a faculty of knowledge nor an
\ninstrument of omniscience; it is a faculty for the seeking of
\nknowledge, for expressing as much as it can gain of it in certain
\nforms of a relative thought and for using it towards certain capacities
\nof action. Even when it finds, it does not possess; it
\nonly keeps a certain fund of current coin of Truth—not Truth itself—in
\nthe bank of Memory to draw upon according to its
\nneeds. For Mind is that which does not know, which tries to know and
\nwhich never knows except as in a glass darkly. It is
\nthe power which interprets truth of universal existence for the
\npractical uses of a certain order of things; it is not the power
\nwhich knows and guides that existence and therefore it cannot be the
\npower which created or manifested it.<\/p>\n

    
\nBut if we suppose an infinite Mind which would be free from our limitations, that at least might well be the creator of
\nthe universe? But such a Mind would be something quite different from the definition of mind as we know it: it would be
\nsomething beyond mentality; it would be the supramental Truth. An infinite Mind constituted in the terms of mentality as we
\nknow it could only create an infinite chaos, a vast clash of chance, accident, vicissitude wandering towards an indeterminate
\nend after which it would be always tentatively groping and aspiring. An infinite, omniscient, omnipotent Mind would not be
\nmind at all, but supramental knowledge. <\/p>\n

     Mind, as we know it, is a reflective
\nmirror which receives presentations or images of a pre-existent Truth or Fact,
\neither external to or at least vaster than itself. It represents to itself from
\nmoment to moment the phenomenon that is or has been. It possesses also the
\nfaculty of constructing in itself possible images other than those of the actual
\nfact presented to it; that is to say, it represents to itself not only
\nphenomenon that has been but also phenomenon that may be: it cannot, be it
\nnoted, <\/p>\n

\nPage-118<\/p>\n

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

\n

represent to itself phenomenon that assuredly will be, except when it is an assured repetition of what is or has been. It has,
\nfinally, the faculty of forecasting new modifications which it seeks to construct out of the meeting of what has been and
\nwhat may be, out of the fulfilled possibility and the unfulfilled, something that it sometimes succeeds in constructing more or
\nless exactly, sometimes fails to realise, but usually finds cast into other forms than it forecasted and turned to other ends
\nthan it desired or intended. <\/p>\n

   
\nAn infinite Mind of this character might possibly construct an
\naccidental cosmos of conflicting possibilities and it might
\nshape it into something shifting, something always transient, something
\never uncertain in its drift, neither real nor unreal,
\npossessed of no definite end or aim but only an endless succession of
\nmomentary aims leading,—since there is no superior
\ndirecting power of knowledge,—eventually nowhither. Nihilism or
\nIllusionism or some kindred philosophy is the only logical
\nconclusion of such a pure noumenalism. The cosmos so constructed would
\nbe a presentation or reflection of something not
\nitself, but always and to the end a false presentation, a distorted
\nreflection; all cosmic existence would be a Mind struggling
\nto work out fully its imaginations, but not succeeding, because they
\nhave no imperative basis of self-truth; overpowered and
\ncarried forward by the stream of its own past energies, it would be
\nborne onward indeterminately for ever without issue
\nunless or until it can either slay itself or fall into an eternal
\nstillness. That traced to its roots is Nihilism and Illusionism and it
\nis the only wisdom if we suppose that our human mentality or anything
\nat all like it represents the highest cosmic force and
\nthe original conception at work in the universe. <\/p>\n

   
\nBut the moment we find in the original power of knowledge a higher
\nforce than that which is represented by our human
\nmentality, this conception of the universe becomes insufficient and
\ntherefore invalid. It has its truth but it is not the whole
\ntruth. It is law of the immediate appearance of the universe, but not
\nof its original truth and ultimate fact. For we perceive
\nbehind the action of Mind, Life and Body, something that is not
\nembraced in the stream of Force but embraces and controls\n<\/p>\n

   
\n Page-119<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 it; something that is not born into a world
\nwhich it seeks to interpret, but has created in its being a world of
\nwhich it has the
\nomniscience; something that does not labour perpetually to form
\nsomething else out of itself while it drifts in the
\novermastering surge of past energies it can no longer control, but has
\nalready in its consciousness a perfect Form of itself
\nand is here gradually unfolding it. The world expresses a foreseen
\nTruth, obeys a predetermining Will, realises an original
\nformative self-vision,—it is the growing image of a divine creation.\n<\/p>\n

     So long as we work only
\nthrough the mentality governed by appearances, this something beyond
\nand behind and yet
\nalways immanent can be only an inference or a presence vaguely felt. We
\nperceive a law of cyclic progress and infer an
\never-increasing perfection of somewhat that is somewhere foreknown. For
\neverywhere we see Law founded in self-being
\nand, when we penetrate within into the rationale of its process, we
\nfind that Law is the expression of an innate knowledge, a
\nknowledge inherent in the existence which is expressing itself and
\nimplied in the force that expresses it; and Law developed
\nby Knowledge so as to allow of progression implies a divinely seen goal
\ntowards which the motion is directed. We see too
\nthat our reason seeks to emerge out of and dominate the helpless drift
\nof our mentality and we arrive at the perception that
\nReason is only a messenger, a representative or a shadow of a greater
\nconsciousness beyond itself which does not need to
\nreason because it is all and knows all that it is. And we can then pass
\nto the inference that this source of Reason is identical
\nwith the Knowledge that acts as Law in the world. This Knowledge
\ndetermines its own law sovereignly because it knows
\nwhat has been, is and will be and it knows because it is eternally, and
\ninfinitely cognises itself. Being that is infinite
\nconsciousness, infinite consciousness that is omnipotent force, when it
\nmakes a world,—that is to say, a harmony of
\nitself,—its object of consciousness, becomes seizable by our thought as
\na cosmic existence that knows its own truth and
\nrealises in forms that which it knows.\n<\/p>\n

     But it is only when we cease to
\nreason and go deep into ourselves, into that secrecy where the activity of mind
\nis stilled, that this other consciousness becomes really manifest to us— <\/p>\n

how-<\/p>\n

\nPage-120<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

ever imperfectly owing to our long habit of mental reaction and mental limitation. Then we can know surely in an
\nincreasing illumination that which we had uncertainly conceived by the pale and flickering light of Reason. Knowledge waits
\nseated beyond mind and intellectual reasoning, throned in the luminous vast of illimitable self-vision.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-121<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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