{"id":647,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=647"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:27","slug":"12-delight-of-existence-the-problem-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\/12-delight-of-existence-the-problem-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-12_Delight of Existence The Problem .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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


\n\t\t Delight of Existence: The Problem<\/p>\n

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

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

\nFor who could live or breathe if
\nthere were not this delight of existence as the ether in which we
\ndwell? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFrom Delight
\nall these beings are born, by Delight they exist and grow, to Delight
\nthey return. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

     B<\/font><\/b>UT<\/font> <\/font>even
\nif we accept this pure Existence, this Brahman, this Sat as the
\nabsolute beginning, end and continent of things and
\nin Brahman an inherent self-consciousness inseparable from its being
\nand throwing itself out as a force of movement of
\nconsciousness which is creative of forces, forms and worlds, we have
\nyet no answer to the question “Why should Brahman,
\nperfect, absolute, infinite, needing nothing, desiring nothing, at all
\nthrow out force of consciousness to create in itself these
\nworlds of forms?” For we have put aside the solution that it is
\ncompelled by its own nature of Force to create, obliged by its
\nown potentiality of movement and formation to move into forms. It is
\ntrue that it has this potentiality, but it is not limited,
\nbound or compelled by it; it is free. If, then, being free to move or
\nremain eternally still, to throw itself into forms or retain
\nthe potentiality of form in itself, it indulges its power of movement
\nand formation, it can be only for one reason, for delight.\n<\/p>\n

     This primary, ultimate and
\neternal Existence, as seen by the Vedantins, is not merely bare
\nexistence, or a conscious
\nexistence whose consciousness is crude force or power; it is a
\nconscious existence the very term of whose being, the very
\nterm of whose consciousness is bliss. As in absolute existence there
\ncan be no nothingness, no night of inconscience, no
\ndeficiency, that is to say, no failure of Force,—for if there were any
\nof these things, it would not be absolute,—so also there
\ncan be no suffering, no negation of delight. Absoluteness of conscious
\nexistence is illimitable bliss of conscious existence;
\nthe two are only different phrases for the same thing. All
\nillimitableness, all infinity, all\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       
\n\u00b9<\/font>
\nII. 7; III. 6.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t Page-91<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

absoluteness is pure delight. Even our relative
\nhumanity has this experience that all dissatisfaction means a limit, an
\nobstacle,—satisfaction comes by realisation of something withheld, by
\nthe surpassing of the limit, the overcoming of the
\nobstacle. This is because our original being is the absolute in full
\npossession of its infinite and illimitable self-consciousness
\nand self-power; a self-possession whose other name is self-delight. And
\nin proportion as the relative touches upon that
\nself-possession, it moves towards satisfaction, touches delight.\n<\/p>\n

     The self-delight of Brahman
\nis not limited, however, by the still and motionless possession of its
\nabsolute self-being. Just
\nas its force of consciousness is capable of throwing itself into forms
\ninfinitely and with an endless variation, so also its
\nself-delight is capable of movement, of variation, of revelling in that
\ninfinite flux and mutability of itself represented by
\nnumberless teeming universes. To loose forth and enjoy this infinite
\nmovement and variation of its self-delight is the object of
\nits extensive or creative play of Force.\n<\/p>\n

     In other words, that which
\nhas thrown itself out into forms is a triune
\nExistence-Consciousness-Bliss, Sachchidananda,
\nwhose consciousness is in its nature a creative or rather a
\nself-expressive Force capable of infinite variation in phenomenon
\nand form of its self-conscious being and endlessly enjoying the delight
\nof that variation. It follows that all things that exist are
\nwhat they are as terms of that existence, terms of that conscious
\nforce, terms of that delight of being. Just as we find all
\nthings to be mutable forms of one immutable being, finite results of
\none infinite force, so we shall find that all things are
\nvariable self-expression of one invariable and all-embracing delight of
\nself-existence. In everything that is, dwells the
\nconscious force and it exists and is what it is by virtue of that
\nconscious force; so also in everything that is there is the
\ndelight of existence and it exists and is what it is by virtue of that
\ndelight.\n<\/p>\n

     This ancient Vedantic
\ntheory of cosmic origin is immediately confronted in the human mind by
\ntwo powerful
\ncontradictions, the emotional and sensational consciousness of pain and
\nthe ethical problem of evil. For if the world be an
\nexpression of Sachchidananda, not only of existence that is conscious-\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tPage-92<\/p>\n

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

force,—for that can easily be admitted,—but of
\nexistence that is also infinite self-delight, how are we to account for
\nthe
\nuniversal presence of grief, of suffering, of pain? For this world
\nappears to us rather as a world of suffering than as a world
\nof the delight of existence. Certainly, that view of the world is an
\nexaggeration, an error of perspective. If we regard it
\ndispassionately and with a sole view to accurate and unemotional
\nappreciation, we shall find that the sum of the pleasure of
\nexistence far exceeds the sum of the pain of existence,—appearances and
\nindividual cases to the contrary
\nnotwithstanding,—and that the active or passive, surface or underlying
\npleasure of existence is the normal state of nature,
\npain a contrary occurrence temporarily suspending or overlaying that
\nnormal state. But for that very reason the lesser sum
\nof pain affects us more intensely and often looms larger than the
\ngreater sum of pleasure; precisely because the latter is
\nnormal, we do not treasure it, hardly even observe it unless it
\nintensifies into some acuter form of itself, into a wave of
\nhappiness, a crest of joy or ecstasy. It is these things that we call
\ndelight and seek and the normal satisfaction of existence
\nwhich is always there regardless of event and particular cause or
\nobject, affects us as something neutral which is neither
\npleasure nor pain. It is there, a great practical fact, for without it
\nthere would not be the universal and overpowering instinct
\nof self-preservation, but it is not what we seek and therefore we do
\nnot enter it into our balance of emotional and sensational
\nprofit and loss. In that balance we enter only positive pleasures on
\none side and discomfort and pain on the other; pain
\naffects us more intensely because it is abnormal to our being, contrary
\nto our natural tendency and is experienced as an
\noutrage on our existence, an offence and external attack on what we are
\nand seek to be.\n<\/p>\n

     Nevertheless the
\nabnormality of pain or its greater or lesser sum does not affect the
\nphilosophical issue; greater or less,
\nits mere presence constitutes the whole problem. All being
\nSachchidananda, how can pain and suffering at all exist? This,
\nthe real problem, is often farther confused by a false issue starting
\nfrom the idea of a personal extracosmic God and a
\npartial issue, the ethical difficulty.\n<\/p>\n

\n

  
\n\t  Page-93
\n <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

      Sachchidananda, it may be
\nreasoned, is God, is a conscious Being who is the author of existence;
\nhow then can God
\nhave created a world in which He inflicts suffering on His creatures,
\nsanctions pain, permits evil? God being All-Good, who
\ncreated pain and evil? If we say that pain is a trial and an ordeal, we
\ndo not solve the moral problem, we arrive at an
\nimmoral or non-moral God,—an excellent world-mechanist perhaps, a
\ncunning psychologist, but not a God of Good and of
\nLove whom we can worship, only a God of Might to whose law we must
\nsubmit or whose caprice we may hope to
\npropitiate. For one who invents torture as a means of test or ordeal,
\nstands convicted either of deliberate cruelty or of moral
\ninsensibility and, if a moral being at all, is inferior to the highest
\ninstinct of his own creatures. And if to escape this moral
\ndifficulty, we say that pain is an inevitable result and natural
\npunishment of moral evil,—an explanation which will not even
\nsquare with the facts of life unless we admit the theory of Karma and
\nrebirth by which the soul suffers now for antenatal
\nsins in other bodies,—we still do not escape the very root of the
\nethical problem,—who created or why or whence was
\ncreated that moral evil which entails the punishment of pain and
\nsuffering? And seeing that moral evil is in reality a form of
\nmental disease or ignorance, who or what created this law or inevitable
\nconnection which punishes a mental disease or act
\nof ignorance by a recoil so terrible, by tortures often so extreme and
\nmonstrous? The inexorable law of Karma is
\nirreconcilable with a supreme moral and personal Deity, and therefore
\nthe clear logic of Buddha denied the existence of any
\nfree and all-governing personal God; all personality he declared to be
\na creation of ignorance and subject to Karma.<\/p>\n

     
\nIn truth, the difficulty thus sharply presented arises only if we assume the existence of an extracosmic personal God,
\nnot Himself the universe, one who has created good and evil, pain and suffering for His creatures, but Himself stands above
\nand unaffected by them, watching, ruling, doing His will with a suffering and struggling world or, if not doing His will, if
\nallowing the world to be driven by an inexorable law, unhelped by Him or inefficiently helped, then not God, not omnipotent,
\nnot all-good and all-loving. On no theory of an extracosmic moral God, can evil\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-94<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

and
\nsuffering be explained,—the creation of evil and suffering,—except by
\nan unsatisfactory subterfuge which avoids the
\nquestion at issue instead of answering it or a plain or implied
\nManicheanism which practically annuls the Godhead in
\nattempting to justify its ways or excuse its works. But such a God is
\nnot the Vedantic Sachchidananda. Sachchidananda of
\nthe Vedanta is one existence without a second; all that is, is He. If
\nthen evil and suffering exist, it is He that bears the evil
\nand suffering in the creature in whom He has embodied Himself. The
\nproblem then changes entirely. The question is no
\nlonger how came God to create for His creatures a suffering and evil of
\nwhich He is Himself incapable and therefore
\nimmune, but how came the sole and infinite
\nExistence-Consciousness-Bliss to admit into itself that which is not
\nbliss, that
\nwhich seems to be its positive negation.<\/p>\n

     
\nHalf of the moral difficulty—that difficulty in its one unanswerable
\nform disappears. It no longer arises, can no longer
\nbe put. Cruelty to others, I remaining immune or even participating in
\ntheir sufferings by subsequent repentance or belated
\npity, is one thing; self-infliction of suffering, I being the sole
\nexistence, is quite another. Still the ethical difficulty may be
\nbrought back in a modified form; All-Delight being necessarily all-good
\nand all-love, how can evil and suffering exist in Sachchidananda, since
\nhe is not mechanical existence, but free and conscious being, free to
\ncondemn and reject evil and
\nsuffering? We have to recognise that the issue so stated is also a
\nfalse issue because it applies the terms of a partial
\nstatement as if they were applicable to the whole. For the ideas of
\ngood and of love which we thus bring into the concept of
\nthe All-Delight spring from a dualistic and divisional conception of
\nthings; they are based entirely on the relations between
\ncreature and creature, yet we persist in applying them to a problem
\nwhich starts, on the contrary, from the assumption of
\nOne who is all. We have to see first how the problem appears or how it
\ncan be solved in its original purity, on the basis of
\nunity in difference; only then can we safely deal with its parts and
\nits developments, such as the relations between creature
\nand creature on the basis of division and duality.<\/p>\n

\n

 Page-95<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    
\nWe have to recognise, if we thus view the whole, not limiting ourselves
\nto the human difficulty and the human
\nstandpoint, that we do not live in an ethical world. The attempt of
\nhuman thought to force an ethical meaning into the whole
\nof Nature is one of those acts of wilful and obstinate self-confusion,
\none of those pathetic attempts of the human being to
\nread himself, his limited habitual human self into all things and judge
\nthem from the standpoint he has personally evolved,
\nwhich most effectively prevent him from arriving at real knowledge and
\ncomplete sight. Material Nature is not ethical; the
\nlaw which governs it is a co-ordination of fixed habits which take no
\ncognisance of good and evil, but only of force that
\ncreates, force that arranges and preserves, force that disturbs and
\ndestroys impartially, non-ethically, according to the secret
\nWill in it, according to the mute satisfaction of that Will in its own
\nself-formations and self-dissolutions. Animal or vital
\nNature is also non-ethical, although as it progresses it manifests the
\ncrude material out of which the higher animal evolves
\nthe ethical impulse. We do not blame the tiger because it slays and
\ndevours its prey any more than we blame the storm
\nbecause it destroys or the fire because it tortures and kills; neither
\ndoes the conscious-force in the storm, the fire or the tiger
\nblame or condemn itself. Blame and condemnation, or rather self-blame
\nand self-condemnation, are the beginning of true
\nethics. When we blame others without applying the same law to
\nourselves, we are not speaking with a true ethical judgment,
\nbut only applying the language ethics has evolved for us to an
\nemotional impulse of recoil from or dislike of that which
\ndispleases or hurts us.\n<\/p>\n

     This recoil or dislike is
\nthe primary origin of ethics, but is not itself ethical. The fear of
\nthe deer for the tiger, the rage of
\nthe strong creature against its assailant is a vital recoil of the
\nindividual delight of existence from that which threatens it. In
\nthe progress of the mentality it refines itself into repugnance,
\ndislike, disapproval. Disapproval of that which threatens and
\nhurts us, approval of that which flatters and satisfies refine into the
\nconception of good and evil to oneself, to the community,
\nto others than ourselves, to other communities than ours, and finally
\ninto the general approval of good, the general
\ndisapproval of evil.\n<\/p>\n

\n

  
\n\t  Page-96<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But, throughout, the fundamental nature of the thing remains the same. Man desires self-expression, self-development, in
\nother words, the progressing play in himself of the conscious-force of existence; that is his fundamental delight. Whatever
\nhurts that self-expression, self-development, satisfaction of his progressing self, is for him evil; whatever helps, confirms,
\nraises, aggrandises, ennobles it is his good. Only, his conception of the self-development changes, becomes higher and
\nwider, begins to exceed his limited personality, to embrace others, to embrace all in its scope.<\/p>\n

     
\nIn other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to
\nall stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards
\nself-expression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical
\nin the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical
\nfor it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove
\nwhen done to ourselves. In this respect man even now
\nis only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so
\nthere may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive,
\nwhich is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and
\nattitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by
\nwhich it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon
\ninconscience and broken up by Life into individual
\ndiscords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient
\noneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal,
\nthis means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the
\nqualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally
\ndissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.<\/p>\n

      If, then, the ethical
\nstandpoint applies only to a temporary though all-important passage from one
\nuniversality to another, we cannot apply it to the total solution of the problem
\nof the universe, but can only admit it as one element in that solution. To do
\notherwise is to run into the peril of falsifying all the facts of the universe,
\nall the meaning of the evolution behind and beyond us in order to suit a
\ntemporary outlook and a half-evolved view of the utility of things. The world
\nhas three layers, infra-ethical, ethical and supra-ethical. We have to find that
\nwhich is common to all; for only so can we resolve the problem. <\/p>\n

     That which is common to all is, we have seen, the
\nsatisfac-<\/p>\n

Page
\n-97<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

tion of conscious-force of existence developing
\nitself into forms and seeking in that development its delight. From
\nthat satisfaction or delight of self-existence it evidently began; for
\nit is that which is normal to it, to which it clings, which it
\nmakes its base; but it seeks new forms of itself and in the passage to
\nhigher forms there intervenes the phenomenon of pain
\nand suffering which seems to contradict the fundamental nature of its
\nbeing. This and this alone is the root-problem. <\/p>\n

     How shall we solve it?
\nShall we say that Sachchidananda is not the beginning and end of
\nthings, but the beginning and
\nend is Nihil, an impartial void, itself nothing but containing all
\npotentialities of existence or non-existence, consciousness or
\nnon-consciousness, delight or undelight? We may accept this answer if
\nwe choose; but although we seek thereby to explain
\neverything, we have really explained nothing, we have only included
\neverything. A Nothing which is full of all potentialities is
\nthe most complete opposition of terms and things possible and we have
\ntherefore only explained a minor contradiction by a
\nmajor, by driving the self-contradiction of things to their maximum.
\nNihil is the void, where there can be no potentialities; an
\nimpartial indeterminate of all potentialities is Chaos, and all that we
\nhave done is to put Chaos into the Void without
\nexplaining how it got there. Let us return, then, to our original
\nconception of Sachchidananda and see whether on that
\nfoundation a completer solution is not possible.\n<\/p>\n

     We must first make it clear
\nto ourselves that just as when we speak of universal consciousness we
\nmean something
\ndifferent from, more essential and wider than the waking mental
\nconsciousness of the human being, so also when we speak
\nof universal delight of existence we mean something different from,
\nmore essential and wider than the ordinary emotional
\nand sensational pleasure of the individual human creature. Pleasure,
\njoy and delight, as man uses the words, are limited and
\noccasional movements which depend on certain habitual causes and
\nemerge, like their opposites pain and grief which are
\nequally limited and occasional movements, from a background other than
\nthemselves. Delight of being is universal, illimitable
\nand self-existent, not dependent on particular causes, the background
\nof all
\nback-<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tPage-98<\/p>\n

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

grounds, from which pleasure, pain and other more neutral experiences emerge. When delight of being seeks to realise
\nitself as delight of becoming, it moves in the movement of force and itself takes different forms of movement of which
\npleasure and pain are positive and negative currents. Subconscient in Matter, superconscient beyond Mind this delight seeks
\nin Mind and Life to realise itself by emergence in the becoming, in the increasing self-consciousness of the movement. Its
\nfirst phenomena are dual and impure, move between the poles of pleasure and pain, but it aims at its self-revelation in the
\npurity of a supreme delight of being which is self-existent and independent of objects and causes. Just as Sachchidananda
\nmoves towards the realisation of the universal existence in the individual and of the form-exceeding consciousness in the
\nform of body and mind, so it moves towards the realisation of universal,
\nself-existent and objectless delight in the flux of particular experiences and
\nobjects. Those objects we now seek as stimulating causes of a transient pleasure
\nand satisfaction; free, possessed of self, we shall not seek but shall possess
\nthem as reflectors rather than causes of a delight which eternally exists. <\/p>\n

     In the egoistic human being, the
\nmental person emergent out of the dim shell of matter, delight of existence is
\nneutral, semi-latent, still in the shadow of the subconscious, hardly more than
\na concealed soil of plenty covered by desire with a luxuriant growth of
\npoisonous weeds and hardly less poisonous flowers, the pains and pleasures of
\nour egoistic existence. When the divine conscious-force working secretly in us
\nhas devoured these growths of desire, when in the image of the Rig Veda the fire
\nof God has burnt up the shoots of earth, that which is concealed at the roots of
\nthese pains and pleasures, their cause and secret being, the sap of delight in
\nthem, will emerge in new forms not of desire, but of self-existent satisfaction
\nwhich will replace mortal pleasure by the Immortal’s ecstasy. And this
\ntransformation is possible because these growths of sensation and emotion are in
\ntheir essential being, the pains no less than the pleasures, that delight of
\nexistence which they seek but fail to reveal,—fail because of division,
\nignorance of self and egoism. <\/p>\n

\n Page-99<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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