{"id":988,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=988"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:46","slug":"37-the-soul-and-nature-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/37-the-soul-and-nature-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-37_The Soul and Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter XVII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>The Soul and Nature<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HIS<\/span><\/font> is the result of the integral knowledge
\ntaken in its mass; its work is to gather up the different strands of our being
\ninto the universal oneness. If we are to possess perfectly the world in our new
\ndivinised consciousness as the Divine himself possesses it, we have to know also
\neach thing in its absoluteness, first by itself, secondly in its union with all
\nthat completes it; for so has the Divine imaged out and seen its being in the
\nworld. To see things as parts, as incomplete elements is a lower analytic
\nknowledge. The Absolute is everywhere; it has to be seen and found everywhere.
\nEvery finite is an infinite and has to be known and sensed in its intrinsic
\ninfiniteness as well as in its surface finite appearance. But so to know the
\nworld, so to perceive and experience it, it is not enough to have an
\nintellectual idea or imagination that so it is; a certain divine vision, divine
\nsense, divine ecstasy is needed, an experience of union of ourselves with the
\nobjects of our consciousness. In that experience not only the Beyond but all
\nhere, not only the totality, the All in its mass, but each thing in the All
\nbecomes to us our self, God, the Absolute and Infinite, Sachchidananda. This is
\nthe secret of complete delight in God’s world, complete satisfaction of the
\nmind and heart and will, complete liberation of the consciousness. It is the
\nsupreme experience at which art and poetry and all the various efforts of
\nsubjective and objective knowledge and all desire and effort to possess and enjoy
\nobjects are trying more or less obscurely to arrive; their attempt to seize the
\nforms and properties and qualities of things is only a first movement which
\ncannot give the deepest satisfaction unless by seizing them perfectly and
\nabsolutely they get the sense of the infinite reality of which these are the
\nouter symbols. To the rational mind and the ordinary sense-experience this may
\nwell seem only a poetic fancy or a mystic hallucination; but the absolute
\nsatisfaction and sense <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 408<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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of illumination which it
\ngives and alone can give is really a proof of its greater validity; we get by
\nthat a ray from the higher consciousness and the diviner sense into which our
\nsubjective being is intended eventually, if we will only allow it, to be
\ntransfigured.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have seen
\nthat this applies to the highest principles of the Divine Being. Ordinarily,
\nthe discriminating mind tells us that only what is beyond all manifestation is
\nabsolute, only the formless Spirit is infinite, only the timeless, spaceless<\/span>, immutable, immobile Self in its repose is
\nabsolutely real; and if we follow and are governed in our endeavour by this conception,
\nthat is the subjective experience at which we shall arrive, all else seeming to
\nus false or only relatively true. But if we start from the larger conception, a
\ncompleter truth and a wider experience open to us. We perceive that the immutability
\nof the timeless, spaceless<\/span> existence is an absolute
\nand an infinite, but that also the conscious-force and the active delight of
\nthe divine Being in its all-blissful possession of the outpouring of its
\npowers, qualities, self-creations is an absolute and an infinite, \u2013 and indeed
\nthe same absolute and infinite, so much the same that we can enjoy
\nsimultaneously, equally the divine timeless calm and peace and the divine
\ntime-possessing joy of activity, freely, infinitely, without bondage or the
\nlapse into unrest and suffering. So too we can have the same experience of all
\nthe principles of this activity which in the Immutable are self-contained and
\nin a sense drawn in and concealed, in the cosmic are expressed and realise
\ntheir infinite quality and capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of
\nthese principles in importance is the duality \u2013 which resolves itself into a
\nunity \u2013 of Purusha and Prakriti of which we have had occasion to speak in the
\nYoga of Works, but which is of equal importance for the Yoga of Knowledge. This
\ndivision was made most clearly by the old Indian philosophies; but it bases
\nitself upon the eternal fact of practical duality in unity upon which the
\nworld-manifestation is founded. It is given different names according to our
\nview of the universe. The Vedantins spoke of the Self and Maya, meaning
\naccording to their predilections by the Self the Immutable and by Maya the
\npower the Self has of imposing on itself the cosmic illusion, or by the Self
\nthe Divine Being and by Maya the nature of conscious-being and the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 409<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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conscious-force by which
\nthe Divine embodies himself in soul-forms and forms of things. Others spoke of
\nIshwara and Shakti, the Lord and His force, His cosmic power. The analytic
\nphilosophy of the Sankhyas affirmed their eternal duality without any
\npossibility of oneness, accepting only relations of union and separation by
\nwhich the cosmic action of Prakriti begins, proceeds or ceases for the Purusha;
\nfor the Purusha is an inactive conscious existence, \u2013 it is the Soul the same in
\nitself and immutable forever, \u2013 Prakriti the active force of Nature which by
\nits motion creates and maintains and by its sinking into rest dissolves the
\nphenomenon of the cosmos. Leaving aside these philosophical distinctions, we
\ncome to the original psychological experience from which all really take their
\nstart, that there are two elements in the existence of living beings, of human
\nbeings at least if not of all cosmos, \u2013 a dual being, Nature and the soul. <\/span><\/p>\n

This duality
\nis self-evident. Without any philosophy at all, by the mere force of experience
\nit is what we can all perceive, although we may not take the trouble to define.
\nEven the most thoroughgoing materialism which denies the soul or resolves it
\ninto a more or less illusory result of natural phenomena acting upon some
\nill-explained phenomenon of the physical brain which we call consciousness or
\nthe mind, but which is really no more than a sort of complexity of nervous spasms,
\ncannot get rid of the practical fact of this duality. It does not matter at all
\nhow it came about; the fact is not only there, it determines our whole
\nexistence, it is the one fact which is really important to us as human beings
\nwith a will and an intelligence and a subjective existence which makes all our
\nhappiness and our suffering. The whole problem of life resolves itself into
\nthis one question, \u2013 \u201cWhat are we to do with this soul and nature set face to
\nface with each other, \u2013 we who have as one side of our existence this Nature,
\nthis personal and cosmic activity, which tries to impress itself upon the soul,
\nto possess, control, determine it, and as the other side this soul which feels
\nthat in some mysterious way it has a freedom, a control over itself, a
\nresponsibility for what it is and does, and tries therefore to turn upon
\nNature, its own and the world’s, and to control, possess, enjoy, or even, it
\nmay be, reject and escape from her?\u201d In order to answer that question we have
\nto know, \u2013 to know what the soul can do, to know what
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 410<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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it can do with itself,
\nto know too what it can do with Nature and the world. The whole of human
\nphilosophy, religion, science is really nothing but an attempt to get at the
\nright data upon which it will be possible to answer the question and solve, as
\nsatisfactorily as our knowledge will allow, the problem of our existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hope of a
\ncomplete escape from our present strife with and subjection to our lower and
\ntroubled nature and existence arises when we perceive what religion and
\nphilosophy affirm, but modern thought has tried to deny, that there are two
\npoises of our soul-existence, a lower, troubled and subjected, a higher,
\nsupreme, untroubled and sovereign, one vibrant in Mind, the other tranquil in
\nSpirit. The hope not only of an escape, but of a completely satisfying and
\nvictorious solution comes when we perceive what some religions and philosophies
\naffirm, but others seem to deny, that there is also in the dual unity of soul
\nand nature a lower, an ordinary human status and a higher, a divine; for it is
\nin the divine alone that the conditions of the duality stand reversed; there
\nthe soul becomes that which now it only struggles and aspires to be, master of its
\nnature, free and by union with the Divine possessor also of the world-nature.
\nAccording to our idea of these possibilities will be the solution we shall
\nattempt to realise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Involved in
\nmind, possessed by the ordinary phenomenon of mental thought, sensation, emotion,
\nreception of the vital and physical impacts of the world and mechanical
\nreaction to them, the soul is subject to Nature. Even its will and intelligence
\nare determined by its mental nature, determined even more largely by the mental
\nnature of its environment which acts upon, subtly as well as overtly, and
\novercomes the individual mentality. Thus its attempt to regulate, to control,
\nto determine its own experience and action is pursued by an element of
\nillusion, since when it thinks it is acting, it is really Nature that is acting
\nand determining all it thinks, wills and does. If there were not this constant
\nknowledge in it that it is, that it exists in itself, is not the body or life
\nbut something other which at least receives and accepts the cosmic experience
\nif it does not determine it, it would be compelled in the end to suppose that
\nNature is all and the soul an illusion. This is the conclusion modern Materialism
\naffirms and to that nihilistic Buddhism arrived; the Sankhyas, perceiving the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 411<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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dilemma, solved it by
\nsaying that the soul in fact only mirrors Nature’s determinations and itself
\ndetermines nothing, is not the lord, but can by refusing to mirror them fall
\nback into eternal immobility and peace. There are too the other solutions which
\narrive at the same practical conclusion, but from the other end, the spiritual;
\nfor they affirm either that Nature is an illusion or that both the soul and Nature
\nare impermanent and they point us to a state beyond in which their duality has
\nno existence; either they cease by the extinction of both in something
\npermanent and ineffable or their discordances end by the exclusion of the
\nactive principle altogether. Though they do not satisfy humanity’s larger hope
\nand deep-seated impulse and aspiration, these are valid solutions so far as
\nthey go; for they arrive at an Absolute in itself or at the separate absolute
\nof the soul, even if they reject the many rapturous infinities of the Absolute
\nwhich the true possession of Nature by the soul in its divine existence offers
\nto the eternal seeker in man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Uplifted into
\nthe Spirit the soul is no longer subject to Nature; it is above this mental
\nactivity. It may be above it in detachment and aloofness, udāsīna<\/i><\/span>, seated above
\nand indifferent, or attracted by and lost in the absorbing peace or bliss of its
\nundifferentiated, its concentrated spiritual experience of itself; we must then
\ntranscend by a complete renunciation of Nature and cosmic existence, not conquer
\nby a divine and sovereign possession. But the Spirit, the Divine is not only
\nabove Nature; it is master of Nature and cosmos; the soul rising into its
\nspiritual poise must at least be capable of the same mastery by its unity with
\nthe Divine. It must be capable of controlling its own nature not only in calm
\nor by forcing it to repose, but with a sovereign control of its play and
\nactivity. To arrive by an intense spirituality at the absolute of the soul is
\nour possibility on one side of our dual existence; to enjoy the absolute of
\nNature and of everything in Nature is our possibility on the other side of this
\neternal duality. To unify these highest aspirations in a divine possession of
\nGod and ourselves and the world, should be our happy completeness. In the lower
\npoise this is not possible because the soul acts through the mind and the mind
\ncan only act individually and fragmentarily in a contented obedience or a
\nstruggling subjection to that universal Nature through which the divine knowledge
\nand the divine Will are worked out in the cosmos. But the Spirit is in
\npossession of knowledge and will, of which it is the source and cause and not a
\nsubject; therefore in proportion as the soul assumes its divine or spiritual
\nbeing, it assumes also control of the movements of its nature. It becomes, in
\nthe ancient language, svarāt<\/i><\/span>,
\nfree and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 412<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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a self-ruler over the
\nkingdom of its own life and being. But also it increases in control over its
\nenvironment, its world. This it can only do entirely by universalising itself;
\nfor it is the divine and universal will that it must express in its action upon
\nthe world. It must first extend its consciousness and see the universe in
\nitself instead of being like the mind limited by the physical, vital,
\nsensational, emotional, intellectual outlook of the little divided personality.
\nIt must accept the world-truths, the world-energies, the world-tendencies, the
\nworld-purposes as its own instead of clinging to its own intellectual ideas, desires
\nand endeavours, preferences, objects, intentions, impulses; these, so far as
\nthey remain, must be harmonised with the universal. It must then submit its
\nknowledge and will at their very source to the divine Knowledge and the divine
\nWill and so arrive through submission at immergence, losing its personal light
\nin the divine Light and its personal initiative in the divine initiative. To be
\nfirst in tune with the Infinite, in harmony with the Divine, and then to be
\nunified with the Infinite, taken into the Divine is its condition of perfect
\nstrength and mastery, and this is precisely the very nature of the spiritual
\nlife and the spiritual existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\ndistinction made in the Gita between the Purusha and the Prakriti gives us the
\nclue to the various attitudes which the soul can adopt towards Nature in its
\nmovement towards perfect freedom and rule. The Purusha is, says the Gita,
\nwitness, upholder, source of the sanction, knower, lord, enjoyer; Prakriti
\nexecutes, it is the active principle and must have an operation corresponding
\nto the attitude of the Purusha. The soul may assume, if it wishes, the poise of
\nthe pure witness, sākşī<\/i><\/span>;
\nit may look on at the action of Nature as a thing from which it stands apart;
\nit watches, but does not itself participate. We have seen the importance of
\nthis quietistic<\/span> capacity; it is the basis of the
\nmovement of withdrawal by which we can say of everything, \u2013 body, life, mental
\naction, thought, sensation, emotion, \u2013 \u201cThis is Prakriti working in the life,
\nmind and body, it is not myself, it is not even mine,\u201d and thus come to the
\nsoul’s separation from these things and to their quiescence. This may,
\ntherefore, be an attitude of renunciation or at least of non-participation, tāmasika<\/i><\/span>,
\nwith a resigned and inert endurance of the natural action so long as it lasts, rājasika<\/i><\/span>,
\nwith a disgust, aversion
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 413<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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and recoil from it, sāttvika<\/i><\/span>,
\nwith a luminous intelligence of the soul’s separateness and the peace and joy
\nof aloofness and repose; but also it may be attended by an equal and impersonal
\ndelight as of a spectator at a show, joyous but unattached and ready to rise up
\nat any moment and as joyfully depart. The attitude of the Witness at its
\nhighest is the absolute of unattachment<\/span> and freedom
\nfrom affection by the phenomena of the cosmic existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the pure
\nWitness, the soul refuses the function of upholder or sustainer<\/span>
\nof Nature. The upholder, bhartā<\/i><\/span>,
\nis another, God or Force or Maya, but not the soul, which only admits the
\nreflection of the natural action upon its watching consciousness, but not any
\nresponsibility for maintaining or continuing it. It does not say \u201cAll this is
\nin me and maintained by me, an activity of my being,\u201d but at the most \u201cThis is
\nimposed on me, but really external to myself.\u201d Unless there is a clear and real
\nduality in existence, this cannot be the whole truth of the matter; the soul is
\nthe upholder also, it supports in its being the energy which unrolls the
\nspectacle of the cosmos and which conducts its energies. When the Purusha
\naccepts this upholding, it may do it still passively and without attachment,
\nfeeling that it contributes the energy, but not that it controls and determines
\nit. The control is another, God or Force or the very nature of Maya; the soul
\nonly upholds indifferently so long as it must, so long perhaps as the force of
\nits past sanction and interest in the energy continues and refuses to be
\nexhausted. But if the attitude of the upholder is fully accepted, an important
\nstep forward has been taken towards identification with the active Brahman and
\nhis joy of cosmic being. For the Purusha has become the active giver of the
\nsanction.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the
\nattitude of the Witness there is also a kind of sanction, but it is passive,
\ninert and has no kind of absoluteness about it; but if he consents entirely to
\nuphold, the sanction has become active, even though the soul may do no more
\nthan consent to reflect, support and thereby maintain in action all the
\nenergies of Prakriti. It may refuse to determine, to select, believing that it
\nis God or Force itself or some Knowledge-Will that selects and determines, and
\nthe soul only a witness and upholder and thereby giver of the sanction, anumantā<\/i><\/span>,
\nbut not the possessor and the director
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 414<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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of the knowledge and the
\nwill, j\u00f1ātā īśvarah<\/i>.
\nThen there is a general sanction in the form of an active upholding of whatever
\nis determined by God or universal Will, but there is not an active
\ndetermination. But if the soul habitually selects and rejects in what is
\noffered to it, it determines; the relatively passive has become an entirely
\nactive sanction and is on the way to be an active control. <\/span><\/p>\n

This it
\nbecomes when the soul accepts its complete function as the knower, lord and
\nenjoyer of Nature. As the knower the soul possesses the knowledge of the force
\nthat acts and determines, it sees the values of being which are realising themselves
\nin cosmos, it is in the secret of Fate. But the force is itself determined by
\nthe knowledge which is its origin and the source and standardiser<\/span>
\nof its valuations and effectuations of values. Therefore in proportion as the
\nsoul becomes again the knower, it becomes also the controller of the action.
\nNor can it do this without becoming the active enjoyer, bhoktā<\/span>.
\nIn the lower being the enjoyment is of a twofold kind, positive and negative,
\nwhich in the electricity of sensation translates itself into joy and suffering;
\nbut in the higher it is an actively equal enjoyment of the divine delight in
\nself-manifestation. That enjoyment again may be limited to a silent spiritual delight
\nor an integral divine joy possessing all things around us and all activities of
\nall parts of our being. There is no loss of freedom, no descent into an ignorant
\nattachment. The man free in his soul is aware that the Divine is the lord of
\nthe action of Nature, that Maya is His Knowledge-Will determining and effecting
\nall, that Force is the Will side of this double divine Power in which knowledge
\nis always present and effectual; he is aware of himself also, even
\nindividually, as a centre of the divine existence, \u2013 a portion of the Lord, the
\nGita expresses it, \u2013 controlling so far the action of Nature which he views,
\nupholds, sanctions, enjoys, knows and by the determinative power of knowledge
\ncontrols. And when he universalises himself, his knowledge still reflects only
\nthe divine knowledge, his will effectuates only the divine will, he enjoys only
\nthe divine delight and not an ignorant personal satisfaction. Thus the Purusha
\npreserves its freedom in its possession, renunciation of limited personality
\neven in its representative enjoyment and delight of cosmic being. It has taken
\nup fully in the higher poise the true relations of the soul and Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Purusha and
\nPrakriti in their union and duality arise from the being of Sachchidananda.
\nSelf-conscious existence is the essential nature of the Being; that is Sat or
\nPurusha. The Power of self-aware existence, whether drawn into itself or acting
\nin the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 415<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

works of its
\nconsciousness and force, its knowledge and its will, Chit and Tapas, Chit and
\nits Shakti, \u2013 that is Prakriti. Delight of being, Ananda, is the eternal truth
\nof the union of this conscious being and its conscious force whether absorbed in
\nitself or else deployed in the inseparable duality of its two aspects. It
\nunrolls the worlds as Prakriti and views them as Purusha; acts in them and
\nupholds the action; executes works and gives the sanction without which the
\nforce of Nature cannot act; executes and controls the knowledge and the will
\nand knows and controls the determinations of the knowledge-force and
\nwill-force; ministers to the enjoyment and enjoys; \u2013 all is the Soul possessor,
\nobserver, knower, lord of Nature and Nature expressing the being, executing the
\nwill, satisfying the self-knowledge, ministering to the delight of being of the
\nsoul. There we have, founded on the very nature of being, the supreme and the
\nuniversal relation of Prakriti with Purusha. The absolute joy of the soul in
\nitself and, based upon that, the absolute joy of the soul in Nature which is
\nthe divine fulfilment of the relation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 416<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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