{"id":649,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=649"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:28","slug":"41-the-origin-of-the-ignorance-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\/41-the-origin-of-the-ignorance-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-41_The Origin of the Ignorance .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nC<\/font>HAPTER<\/font> XII<\/p>\n

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

\nThe Origin of the Ignorance<\/p>\n

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

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

 <\/p>\n

   
\n           
\n        By energism of consciousness
\n1 <\/sup>Brahman is massed; from that
                       
\nMatter is born and from Matter Life and Mind and the worlds.
\n
                                                                                                               Mundaka  
\n\t\tUpanishad.<\/font>2 <\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\n                       
\nHe desired, “May I be Many”, he concentrated in Tapas, by Tapas
\n
                       
\nhe created the world; creating, he entered into it;
\nentering, he
\n                       
\nbecame the existent and the beyond-existence, he became the
\n                       
\nexpressed and the unexpressed, he became
\nknowledge and ignorance,
\n                       
\nhe became the truth and the falsehood: he became the truth, even all
\n                       
\nthis whatsoever that is.
\n“That Truth” they call him.
\n                                                                                                            Taittiriya Upanishad.<\/font>3<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

                       
\nEnergism of consciousness1<\/sup> <\/p>\n

is Brahman.
\n                                                                                                           
\nTaittiriya Upanishad.<\/font>4<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

      I<\/b><\/font>T<\/font>
\nbecomes necessary and possible, now that so much has been fixed, to
\nconsider at close quarters the problem of the
\nIgnorance from the point of view of its pragmatic origin, the process
\nof consciousness which brought it into existence. It is
\non the basis of an integral Oneness as the truth of existence that we
\nhave to consider the problem and see how far the
\ndifferent possible solutions are on this basis applicable. How could
\nthis manifold ignorance or this narrowly self-limiting and separative
\nknowledge arise and come into action or maintain itself in action in an
\nabsolute Being who must be absolute
\nconsciousness and therefore cannot be subject to ignorance? How is even
\nan apparent division effectively operated and
\nkept in continuance in the Indivisible? The Being, integrally one,
\ncannot be ignorant of itself; and since all things are itself,
\nconscious modifications, determinations of its being, it cannot either
\nbe ignorant of things, of their true nature, of their true
\naction. But though we say that we are That, that the Jivatman or
\nindividual self is no other than the Paramatman, no other than the
\nAbsolute, yet we are certainly ignorant both of ourselves and things,
\nfrom which this contradiction results that what must be in its very
\ngrain <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/font><\/sup>Tapas. 
\n      2<\/sup>  I. 1. 8.         
\n3<\/sup>  II. 6.           
\n4<\/sup>  III. 2-5. <\/font> <\/p>\n


\nPage 566 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

incapable of ignorance is yet capable of it, and has plunged itself into it by some will of its being or some necessity or
\npossibility of its nature. We do not ease the difficulty if we plead that Mind, which is the seat of ignorance, is a thing of
\nMaya, non-existent, not-Brahman, and that Brahman, the Absolute, the sole Existence cannot in any way be touched by the
\nignorance of mind which is part of the illusory being, Asat, the Non-Existence. This is an escape which is not open to us if
\nwe admit an integral Oneness: for then it is evident that, in making so radical a distinction and at the same time cancelling it
\nby terming it illusory, we are using the magic or Maya of thought and word in order to conceal from ourselves the fact that
\nwe are dividing and denying the unity of the Brahman; for we have erected two opposite powers, Brahman incapable of
\nillusion and self-illusive Maya, and pitchforked them into an impossible unity. If Brahman is the sole existence, Maya can be
\nnothing but a power of Brahman, a force of his consciousness or a result of his being; and if the Jivatman, one with
\nBrahman, is subject to its own Maya, the Brahman in it is subject to Maya. But this is not intrinsically or fundamentally
\npossible: the subjection can only be a submission of something in Nature to an action of Nature which is part of the
\nconscious and free movement of the Spirit in things, a play of its own self-manifesting Omniscience. Ignorance must be part
\nof the movement of the One, a development of its consciousness knowingly adopted, to which it is not forcibly subjected but
\nwhich it uses for its cosmic purpose. <\/p>\n

     It is not open to us to get rid of the whole difficulty by saying that the Jivatman
\nand the Supreme are not One, but eternally different, the one subject to
\nignorance, the other absolute in being and consciousness and therefore in
\nknowledge; for this contradicts the supreme experience and the whole experience
\nwhich is that of unity in being, whatever difference there may be in the action
\nof Nature. It is easier to accept the fact of unity in difference which is so
\nevident and pervasive in all the building of the universe and satisfy ourselves
\nwith the statement that we are one, yet different, one in essential being and
\ntherefore in essential nature, different in soul-form and therefore in active
\nnature. But we thereby only state the fact, leaving the difficulty raised by the
\nfact unsolved, <\/p>\n


\nPage 567 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

how that which belongs in the essence of its being
\nto the unity of the Absolute and should therefore be one with it and
\nwith
\nall in consciousness, comes to be divided in its dynamic form of self
\nand its activity and subject to Ignorance. It is also to be
\nnoted that the statement would not be wholly true, since it is possible
\nfor the Jivatman to enter into unity with the active
\nnature of the One and not only into a static essential oneness. Or we
\nmay escape the difficulty by saying that beyond or
\nabove existence and its problems there is the Unknowable which is
\nbeyond or above our experience, and that the action of
\nMaya has already begun in the Unknowable before the world began and
\ntherefore is itself unknowable and inexplicable in
\nits cause and its origin. This would be a sort of idealistic as opposed
\nto a materialistic Agnosticism. But all Agnosticism is
\nsubject to this objection that it may be nothing but our refusal to
\nknow, a too ready embracing of an apparent and present
\nrestriction or constriction of consciousness, a sense of impotence
\nwhich may be permitted to the immediate limitations of the
\nmind but not to the Jivatman who is one with the Supreme. The Supreme
\nmust surely know himself and the cause of
\nignorance, and therefore the Jivatman has no ground to despair of any
\nknowledge or deny his capacity of knowing the
\nintegral Supreme and the original cause of his own present
\nignorance. <\/p>\n

   
\nThe Unknowable, if it is at all, may be a supreme state of
\nSachchidananda beyond our highest conceptions of existence,
\nconsciousness and bliss; that is what was evidently meant by the Asat,
\nthe Non-Existent of the Taittiriya Upanishad, which alone was in the
\nbeginning and out of which the existent was born, and possibly too it
\nmay be the inmost sense of the Nirvana of the Buddha: for the
\ndissolution of our present state by Nirvana may be a reaching to some
\nhighest state beyond all notion or experience of self even, an
\nineffable release from our sense of existence. Or it may be the
\nUpanishad’s absolute and unconditioned bliss which is beyond expression
\nand beyond understanding, because it surpasses all that we can conceive
\nof or describe as consciousness and existence. This is the sense in
\nwhich we have already accepted it; for the acceptation commits us only
\nto a refusal to put a limit to the ascension of the Infinite. Or, if it
\nis <\/p>\n


\nPage 568 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

not this, if it is something quite different from existence, even from an unconditioned existence, it must be the absolute
\nNon-Being of the nihilistic thinker. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut out of absolute Nothingness nothing can come, not even anything
\nmerely apparent, not even an illusion; and if the
\nabsolute Non-Existence is not that, then it can only be an absolute
\neternally unrealised Potentiality, an enigmatic zero of the
\nInfinite out of which relative potentialities may at any time emerge,
\nbut only some actually succeed in emerging into
\nphenomenal appearance. Out of this Non-Existence anything may arise,
\nand there is no possibility of saying what or why; it
\nis for all practical purposes a seed of absolute chaos out of which by
\nsome happy, — or rather unhappy, —accident there has
\nemerged the order of a universe. Or we may say that there is no real
\norder of the universe; what we take for such is a
\npersistent habit of the senses and the life and a figment of the mind
\nand it is useless to seek for an ultimate reason of things.
\nOut of an absolute chaos all paradox and absurdity can be born, and the
\nworld is such a paradox, a mysterious sum of
\ncontraries and puzzles, or, it may be, in effect, as some have felt or
\nthought, a huge error, a monstrous, an infinite delirium.
\nOf such a universe not an absolute Consciousness and Knowledge, but an
\nabsolute Inconscience and Ignorance may be the
\nsource. Anything may be true in such a cosmos: everything may have been
\nborn out of nothing; thinking mind may be only a
\ndisease of unthinking Force or inconscient Matter; dominant order,
\nwhich we suppose to be existence according to the truth
\nof things, may be really the mechanical law of an eternal
\nself-ignorance and not the self-evolution of a supreme self-ruling
\nconscious Will; perpetual existence may be the constant phenomenon of
\nan eternal Nihil. All opinions about the origins of things become of an
\nequal force, since all are equally valid or invalid; for all become
\nequally possible where there is no sure starting-point and no
\nascertainable goal of the revolutions of the becoming. All these
\nopinions have been held by the human mind and in all there has been
\nprofit, even if we regard them as errors; for errors are permitted to
\nthe mind because they open doors upon truth, negatively by destroying
\nopposite errors, positively by preparing an element in a new
\nconstructive hypothesis. But, pushed too <\/p>\n


\nPage 569 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

far, this view of things leads to the negation of
\nthe whole aim of philosophy, which seeks for knowledge and not for
\nchaos
\nand which cannot fulfil itself if the last word of knowledge is the
\nUnknowable, but only if it is something, to use the words of
\nthe Upanishad, which being known all is known. The Unknowable,—not
\nabsolutely unknowable, but beyond mental
\nknowledge, — can only be a higher degree in the intensity of being of
\nthat Something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit
\nattainable by mental beings, and, if it were known as it must be known
\nto itself, that discovery would not destroy entirely
\nwhat is given us by our supreme possible knowledge but rather carry it
\nto a higher fulfilment and larger truth of what it has
\nalready gained by self-vision and self-experience. It is then this
\nSomething, an Absolute which can be so known that all
\ntruths can stand in it and by it and find there their reconciliation,
\nthat we must discover as our starting-point and keep as our
\nconstant base of thinking and seeing and by it find a solution of the
\nproblem; for it is That alone that can carry in it a key to
\nthe paradoxes of the universe. <\/p>\n

    
\nThis Something is, as Vedanta insists and as we have throughout
\ninsisted, in its manifest nature Sachchidananda, a
\ntrinity of absolute existence, consciousness and bliss. It is from this
\nprimal truth that we must start in approaching the
\nproblem, and it is evident then that the solution must be found in an
\naction of consciousness manifesting itself as knowledge
\nand yet limiting that knowledge in such a way as to create the
\nphenomenon of the Ignorance, — and since the Ignorance is a
\nphenomenon of the dynamic action of Force of Consciousness, not an
\nessential fact but a creation, a consequence of that
\naction, it is this Force aspect of Consciousness that it will be
\nfruitful to consider. Absolute consciousness is in its nature
\nabsolute power; the nature of Chit is Shakti: Force or Shakti
\nconcentrated and energised for cognition or for action in a
\nrealising power effective or creative, the power of conscious being
\ndwelling upon itself and bringing out, as it were, by the heat of its
\nincubation1<\/sup>
\nthe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup> Tapas means literally heat, afterwards any kind of energism, askesis, austerity of conscious force acting upon
\nitself or its object. The world was created by Tapas in the form, says the ancient image, of an egg which being
\nbroken, again by Tapas, heat of incubation of conscious force, the Purusha emerged, Soul in Nature, like a bird
\nfrom the egg. It may be observed that the usual translation of the word tapasya in English books, “penance”,
\nis quite misleading,— the idea of penance entered rarely into the austerity practised by Indian ascetics. Nor
\nwas mortification of the body the essence even of the most severe and self-afflicting austerities; the aim was
\nrather an overpassing of the hold of the bodily nature on the consciousness or else a supernormal energising
\nof the consciousness and will to gain some spiritual or other object. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 570 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

seed and development of all that is within it or, to
\nuse a language convenient to our minds, of all its truths and
\npotentialities,
\nhas created the universe. If we examine our own consciousness, we shall
\nsee that this power of its energy applying itself to
\nits object is really the most positive dynamic force it has; by that it
\narrives at all its knowledge and its action and its creation.
\nBut for us there are two objects on which the dynamism within can act,
\nourselves, the internal world, and others, whether
\ncreatures or things, the external world around us. To Sachchidananda
\nthis distinction with its effective and operative
\nconsequences does not apply in the same way as for us, because all is
\nhimself and within himself and there is no such
\ndivision as we make by the limitations of our mind. Secondly, in us
\nonly a part of the force of our being is identified with our
\nvoluntary action, with our will engaged in mental or other activity,
\nthe rest is to our surface mental awareness involuntary in
\nits action or subconscient or superconscient, and from this division
\nalso a great number of important practical consequences
\nemerge: but in Sachchidananda this division too and its consequences do
\nnot apply, since all is his one indivisible self and all
\naction and result are movements of his one indivisible will, his
\nconsciousness-force in dynamic operation. Tapas is the nature
\nof action of his consciousness as of ours, but it is the integral Tapas
\nof an integral consciousness in an indivisible Existence. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut here a question may arise, since there is a passivity in Existence
\nand in Nature as well as an activity, immobile
\nstatus as well as kinesis, what is the place and role of this Force,
\nthis power and its concentration in regard to a status
\nwhere there is no play of energy, where all is immobile. In ourselves
\nwe habitually associate our Tapas, our conscious force, with active
\nconsciousness, with energy in play and in internal or external act and
\nmotion. That which is passive in us produces no action or only an
\ninvoluntary or mechanical action, and we do not associate it with our
\nwill or conscious force; still, since there too there <\/p>\n


\nPage 571 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

is the possibility of action or the emergence of an
\nautomatic activity, it must have at least a passively responsive or
\nautomatic conscious force in it; or there is in it either a secretly
\npositive or a negative and inverse Tapas. It may also be that
\nthere is a larger conscious force, power or will in our being unknown
\nto us which is behind this involuntary action, — if not a
\nwill, at least a force of some kind which itself initiates action or
\nelse responds to the contacts, suggestions, stimulations of
\nthe universal Energy. In Nature also we know that things stable, inert
\nor passive are yet maintained in their energy by a
\nsecret and unceasing motion, an energy in action upholding the apparent
\nimmobility. Here too, then, all is due to the presence
\nof Shakti, to the action of its power in concentration, its Tapas. But
\nbeyond this, beyond this relative aspect of status and
\nkinesis, we find that we have the power to arrive at what seems to us
\nan absolute passivity or immobility of our
\nconsciousness in which we cease from all mental and physical activity.
\nThere seem, then, to be an active consciousness in
\nwhich consciousness works as an energy throwing up knowledge and
\nactivity out of itself and of which therefore Tapas is
\nthe character, and a passive consciousness in which consciousness does
\nnot act as an energy, but only exists as a status and
\nof which therefore absence of Tapas or force in action is the
\ncharacter. Is the apparent absence of Tapas in this state real,
\nor is there such an effective distinction in Sachchidananda? It is
\naffirmed that there is: the dual status of Brahman, quiescent
\nand creative, is indeed one of the most important and fruitful
\ndistinctions in Indian philosophy; it is besides a fact of spiritual
\nexperience. <\/p>\n

     Here
\nlet us observe, first, that by this passivity in ourselves we arrive
\nfrom particular and broken knowledge at a
\ngreater, a one and a unifying knowledge; secondly, that if, in the
\nstate of passivity, we open ourselves entirely to what is
\nbeyond, we can become aware of a Power acting upon us which we feel to
\nbe not our own in the limited egoistic sense, but
\nuniversal or transcendental, and that this Power works through us for a
\ngreater play of knowledge, a greater play of energy,
\naction and result, which also we feel to be not our own, but that of
\nthe Divine, of Sachchidananda, ourselves only its field or
\nchannel. The result\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 572<\/p>\n

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

\n

happens in both cases because our individual
\nconsciousness rests from an ignorant limited action and opens itself to
\nthe
\nsupreme status or to the supreme action. In the latter, the more
\ndynamic opening, there is power and play of knowledge and
\naction, and that is Tapas; but in the former also, in the static
\nconsciousness, there is evidently a power for knowledge and a
\nconcentration of knowledge or at least a concentration of consciousness
\nin immobility and a self-realisation, and that too is
\nTapas. Therefore it would seem that Tapas, concentration of power of
\nconsciousness, is the character of both the passive
\nand the active consciousness of Brahman, and that our own passivity
\nalso has a certain character of an unseen supporting
\nor instrumentalising Tapas. It is a concentration of energy of
\nconsciousness that sustains, while it lasts, all creation, all action
\nand kinesis; but it is also a concentration of power of consciousness
\nthat supports inwardly or informs all status, even the
\nmost immobile passivity, even an infinite stillness or an eternal
\nsilence. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut still, it may be said, these are in the end two different things,
\nand this is shown by their difference of opposite
\nresults; for a resort to the passivity of Brahman leads to the
\ncessation of this existence and a resort to the active Brahman
\nleads to its continuance. But here too, let us observe that this
\ndistinction arises by a movement of the individual soul from
\none poise to another, from the poise of Brahman-consciousness in the
\nworld, where it is a fulcrum for the universal action,
\nto or towards the poise of Brahman-consciousness beyond the world,
\nwhere it is a power for the withholding of energy from
\nthe universal action. Moreover, if it is by energy of Tapas that the
\ndispensing of force of being in the world-action is
\naccomplished, it is equally by the energy of Tapas that the drawing
\nback of that force of being is accomplished. The passive consciousness
\nof Brahman and its active consciousness are not two different,
\nconflicting and incompatible things; they are the same consciousness,
\nthe same energy, at one end in a state of self-reservation, at the
\nother cast into a motion of self-giving and self-deploying, like the
\nstillness of a reservoir and the coursing of the channels which flow
\nfrom it. In fact, behind every activity there is and must be a passive
\npower of being from which it arises, by which <\/p>\n


\nPage 573 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

it is supported, which even, we see in the end, governs it from behind without being totally identified with it,—in the sense at
\nleast of being itself all poured out into the action and indistinguishable from it. Such a self-exhausting identification is
\nimpossible; for no action, however vast, exhausts the original power from which it proceeds, leaving nothing behind it in
\nreserve. When we get back into our own conscious being, when we stand back from our own action and see how it is done,
\nwe discover that it is our whole being which stands behind any particular act or sum of activities, passive in the rest of its
\nintegrality, active in its limited dispensation of energy; but that passivity is not an incapable inertia, it is a poise of
\nself-reserved energy. A similar truth must apply still more completely to the conscious being of the Infinite, whose power, in
\nsilence of status as in creation, must also be infinite. <\/p>\n

    
\nIt is immaterial for the moment to inquire whether the passivity out of
\nwhich all emerges is absolute or only relative to
\nthe observable action from which it holds back. It is enough to note
\nthat, though we make the distinction for the convenience
\nof our minds, there is not a passive Brahman and an active Brahman, but
\none Brahman, an Existence which reserves Its Tapas in what we call
\npassivity and gives Itself in what we call Its activity. For the
\npurposes of action, these are two poles
\nof one being or a double power necessary for creation; the action
\nproceeds on its circuit from the reservation and returns to
\nit, presumably, the energies that were derived, to be again thrown out
\nin a fresh circuit. The passivity of Brahman is Tapas
\nor concentration of Its being dwelling upon Itself in a self-absorbed
\nconcentration of Its immobile energy; the activity is
\nTapas of Its being releasing what It held out of that incubation into
\nmobility and travelling in a million waves of action, dwelling still
\nupon each as It travels and liberating in it the being’s truths and
\npotentialities. There too is a concentration of force, but a multiple
\nconcentration, which seems to us a diffusion. But it is not really a
\ndiffusion, but a deploying; Brahman does not cast Its energy out of
\nItself to be lost in some unreal exterior void, but keeps it at work
\nwithin Its being, conserving it unabridged and undiminished in all its
\ncontinual process of <\/p>\n


\nPage 574 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

conversion and transmutation. The passivity is a great conservation of Shakti, of Tapas supporting a manifold initiation of
\nmovement and transmutation into forms and happenings; the activity is a conservation of Shakti, of Tapas in the movement
\nand transmutation. As in ourselves, so in Brahman, both are relative to each other, both simultaneously co-exist, pole and
\npole in the action of one Existence. <\/p>\n

    
\nThe Reality then is neither an eternal passivity of immobile Being nor
\nan eternal activity of Being in movement, nor is It
\nan alternation in Time between these two things. Neither in fact is the
\nsole absolute truth of Brahman’s reality; their
\nopposition is only true of It in relation to the activities of Its
\nconsciousness. When we perceive Its deployment of the
\nconscious energy of Its being in the universal action, we speak of It
\nas the mobile active Brahman; when we perceive Its
\nsimultaneous reservation of the conscious energy of Its being kept back
\nfrom the action, we speak of It as the immobile
\npassive Brahman, — Saguna and Nirguna, Kshara and Akshara: otherwise
\nthe terms would have no meaning; for there is
\none reality and not two independent realities, one immobile, the other
\nmobile. In the ordinary view of the soul’s evolution into
\nthe action, pravrtti,<\/i> and its involution into the passivity, nivrtti<\/i>,
\nit is supposed that in the action the individual soul becomes ignorant, nescient
\nof its passive which is supposed to be its true being, and in the passivity it
\nbecomes finally nescient of its active which is supposed to be its false or only
\napparent being. But this is because these two movements take place alternately
\nfor us, as in our sleep and waking; we pass in waking into nescience of our
\nsleeping condition, in sleep into nescience of our waking being. But this
\nhappens because only part of our being performs this alternative movement and we
\nfalsely think of ourselves as only that partial existence: but we can discover
\nby a deeper psychological experience that the larger being in us is perfectly
\naware of all that happens even in what is to our partial and superficial being a
\nstate of unconsciousness; it is limited neither by sleep nor by waking. So it is
\nin our relations with Brahman who is our real and integral being. In the
\nignorance we identify ourselves with only a partial consciousness, mental or
\nspiritual-mental in its nature, which becomes <\/p>\n


\nPage 575 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

nescient of its self of status by movement; in this
\npart of us, when we lose the movement, we lose at the same time our
\nhold
\non our self of action by entering into passivity. By an entire
\npassivity the mind falls asleep or enters into trance or else is
\nliberated into a spiritual silence; but though it is a liberation from
\nthe ignorance of the partial being in its flux of action, it is
\nearned by putting on a luminous nescience of the dynamic Reality or a
\nluminous separation from it: the spiritual-mental being
\nremains self-absorbed in a silent essential status of existence and
\nbecomes either incapable of active consciousness or
\nrepugnant to all activity; this release of silence is a status through
\nwhich the soul passes in its journey towards the Absolute.
\nBut there is a greater fulfilment of our true and integral being in
\nwhich both the static and the dynamic sides of the self are
\nliberated and fulfilled in That which upholds both and is limited
\nneither by action nor by silence. <\/p>\n

     For Brahman does not pass alternately
\nfrom passivity to activity and back to passivity by cessation of Its dynamic
\nforce of being. If that were really true of the integral Reality, then, while
\nthe universe continued, there would be no passive Brahman in existence, all
\nwould be action, and, if our universe were dissolved, there would be no active
\nBrahman, all would become cessation and immobile stillness. But this is not so,
\nfor we can become aware of an eternal passivity and self-concentrated calm
\npenetrating and upholding all the cosmic activity and all its multiple
\nconcentrated movement, — and this could not be if, so long as any activity
\ncontinued, the concentrated passivity did not exist supporting it and within it.
\nIntegral Brahman possesses both the passivity and the activity simultaneously
\nand does not pass alternately from one to the other as from a sleep to a waking:
\nit is only some partial activity in us which seems to do that, and we by
\nidentifying ourselves with that partial activity have the appearance of this
\nalternation from one nescience to another nescience; but our true, our integral
\nbeing is not subject to these opposites and it does not need to become unaware
\nof its dynamic self in order to possess its self of silence. When we get the
\nintegral knowledge and the integral liberation of both soul and nature free from
\nthe disabilities of the restricted partial and ignorant being, we too can
\npossess the passivity and the activity with a simultaneous <\/p>\n


\nPage 576 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

possession, exceeding both these poles of the universality, limited by neither of these powers of the Self in its relation or
\nnon-relation to Nature. <\/p>\n

    The Supreme, it has been declared in the Gita,
\nexceeds both the immobile self and the mobile being; even put together they do
\nnot represent all he is. For obviously we do not mean, when we speak of his
\npossessing them simultaneously, that he is the sum of a passivity and an
\nactivity, an integer made of those two fractions, passive with three fourths of
\nhimself, active with one fourth of his existence. In that case, Brahman might be
\na sum of nesciences, the passive three fourths not only indifferent to but quite
\nignorant of all that the activity is doing, the active one fourth quite unaware
\nof the passivity and unable to possess it except by ceasing from action. Even,
\nBrahman the sum might amount to something quite different from his two
\nfractions, something, as it were, up and aloof, ignorant of and irresponsible
\nfor anything which some mystic Maya was at once obstinately doing and rigidly
\nabstaining from doing in the two fractions of his existence. But it is clear
\nthat Brahman the Supreme Being must be aware both of the passivity and the
\nactivity and regard them not as his absolute being, but as opposite, yet,
\nmutually satisfying terms of his universalities. It cannot be true that Brahman,
\nby an eternal passivity, is unaware, entirely separated from his own activities;
\nfree, he contains them in himself, supports them with his eternal power of calm,
\ninitiates them from his eternal poise of energy. It must be equally untrue that
\nBrahman in his activity is unaware of or separated from his passivity;
\nomnipresent, he is there supporting the action, possesses it always in the heart
\nof the movement and is eternally calm and still and free and blissful in all the
\nwhirl of its energies. Nor in either silence or action can he be at all unaware
\nof his absolute being, but knows that all he expresses through them draws its
\nvalue and power from the power of that absolute existence. If it seems otherwise
\nto our experience, it is because we identify with one aspect and by that
\nexclusiveness fail to open ourselves to the integral Reality. <\/p>\n

     There necessarily follows an
\nimportant first result, already arrived at from other viewpoints, that the
\nIgnorance cannot have the origin of its existence or the starting-point of its
\ndividing <\/p>\n


\nPage 577 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

activities in the absolute Brahman or in integral
\nSachchidananda; it belongs only to a partial action of the being with
\nwhich
\nwe identify ourselves, just as in the body we identify ourselves with
\nthat partial and superficial consciousness which
\nalternates between sleep and waking: it is indeed this identification
\nputting aside all the rest of the Reality behind us that is
\nthe constituting cause of the Ignorance. And if Ignorance is not an
\nelement or power proper to the absolute nature of the
\nBrahman or to Its integrality, there can be no original and primal
\nIgnorance. Maya, if it be an original power of the
\nconsciousness of the Eternal, cannot itself be an ignorance or in any
\nway akin to the nature of ignorance, but must be a
\ntranscendent and universal power of self-knowledge and all-knowledge;
\nignorance can only intervene as a minor and
\nsubsequent movement, partial and relative. Is it then something
\ninherent in the multiplicity of souls? Does it come into being
\nimmediately Brahman views himself in the multiplicity, and does that
\nmultiplicity consist of a sum of souls each in its very
\nnature fractional and divided from all the others in consciousness,
\nunable to become aware of them at all except as things
\nexternal to it, linked at most by communication from body to body or
\nmind to mind, but incapable of unity? But we have seen
\nthat this is only what we seem to be in our most superficial layer of
\nconsciousness, the external mind and the physical; when
\nwe get back into a subtler, deeper, larger action of our consciousness,
\nwe find the walls of division becoming thinner and in
\nthe end there is left no wall of division, no Ignorance. <\/p>\n

     Body is the outward sign and lowest
\nbasis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and
\nself-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the
\nindividual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her
\nmultiple consciousness. Bodies cannot communicate with each other except by
\nexternal means and through a gulf of externality; cannot penetrate each other
\nexcept by division of the penetrated body or by taking advantage of some gap in
\nit, some pre-existent division; cannot unite except by a breaking up and
\ndevouring, a swallowing and absorption and so an assimilation, or at most a
\nfusion in which both forms disappear. Mind too, when identified with body, is
\nhampered by its limitations; but in <\/p>\n


\nPage 578 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

itself it is more subtle and two minds can penetrate
\neach other without hurt or division, can interchange their substance
\nwithout mutual injury, can in a way become parts of each other: still
\nmind too has its own form which is separative of it from
\nother minds and is apt to take its stand on this separateness. When we
\nget back to soul-consciousness, the obstacles to unity
\nlessen and finally cease to exist altogether. The soul can in its
\nconsciousness identify itself with other souls, can contain
\nthem and enter into and be contained by them, can realise its unity
\nwith them; and this can take place, not in a featureless
\nand indistinguishable sleep, not in a Nirvana in which all distinctions
\nand individualities of soul and mind and body are lost, but
\nin a perfect waking which observes and takes account of all
\ndistinctions but exceeds them. <\/p>\n

    
\nTherefore ignorance and self-limiting division are not inherent and
\ninsuperable in the multiplicity of souls, are not the
\nvery nature of the multiplicity of Brahman. Brahman, as he exceeds the
\npassivity and the activity, so too exceeds the unity
\nand multiplicity. He is one in himself, but not with a self-limiting
\nunity exclusive of the power of multiplicity, such as is the
\nseparated unity of the body and the mind; he is not the mathematical
\ninteger, one, which is incapable of containing the
\nhundred and is therefore less than the hundred. He contains the
\nhundred, is one in all the hundred. One in himself, he is one
\nin the many and the many are one in him. In other words, Brahman in his
\nunity of spirit is aware of his multiplicity of souls
\nand in the consciousness of his multiple souls is aware of the unity of
\nall souls. In each soul he, the immanent Spirit, the Lord
\nin each heart, is aware of his oneness. The Jivatman illumined by him,
\naware of its unity with the One, is also aware of its
\nunity with the many. Our superficial consciousness, identified with
\nbody and with divided life and dividing mind, is ignorant;
\nbut that also can be illumined and made aware. Multiplicity, then, is
\nnot the necessary cause of the ignorance. <\/p>\n

    
\nIgnorance, as we have already stated, comes in at a later stage, as a
\nlater movement, when mind is separated from its
\nspiritual and supramental basis, and culminates in this earth-life
\nwhere the individual consciousness in the many identifies itself by
\ndividing mind with the form, which is the only safe basis of <\/p>\n


\nPage 579 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

division. But what is the form? It is, at least as
\nwe see it here, a formation of concentrated energy, a knot of the force
\nof
\nconsciousness in its movement, a knot maintained in being by a constant
\nwhirl of action; but whatever transcendent truth or
\nreality it proceeds from or expresses, it is not in any part of itself
\nin manifestation durable or eternal. It is not eternal in its
\nintegrality, nor in its constituting atoms; for they can be
\ndisintegrated by dissolving the knot of energy in constant
\nconcentrated action which is the sole thing that maintains their
\napparent stability. It is a concentration of Tapas in movement
\nof force on the form maintaining it in being which sets up the physical
\nbasis of division. But all things in the activity are, we
\nhave seen, a concentration of Tapas in movement of force upon its
\nobject. The origin of the Ignorance must then be sought
\nfor in some self-absorbed concentration of Tapas, of Conscious-Force in
\naction on a separate movement of the Force; to us
\nthis takes the appearance of mind identifying itself with the separate
\nmovement and identifying itself also in the movement
\nseparately with each of the forms resulting from it. So it builds a
\nwall of separation which shuts out the consciousness in
\neach form from awareness of its own total self, of other embodied
\nconsciousnesses and of universal being. It is here that
\nwe must look for the secret of the apparent ignorance of the embodied
\nmental being as well as of the great apparent
\ninconscience of physical Nature. We have to ask ourselves what is the
\nnature of this absorbing, this separating, this self-forgetful
\nconcentration which is the obscure miracle of the universe. <\/p>\n


\nPage 580<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XII The Origin of the Ignorance                                                    By energism of consciousness 1 Brahman is massed; from that…<\/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-649","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\/649","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=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}