Part VI
Q- I must understand what the Master says. HE says ‘don’t take initiative.’ Therefore we must desist from taking initiative. We have a personality of our own. We can’t overrule it. Our net result is a compromise between the active urges of our personality and the ideal we have learnt.
A- I wish to hear more on ‘Life progresses by consciousness and consciousness by organisation’.
Q- Energy - Life - Consciousness - Organisation - Spirit is a chain.
A- Existence is before energy and Being is beyond Spirit.
Q- I wish to concentrate on ORGANISATION.
A- Elsewhere we have been considering money and Internet as organisation and declare that to know money as organisation is to get more out of our own money.
Q- If this is true, what is the secret of organisation? Why not consider education as organisation, as in our view education is the yoga of society?
A- Organisation is the effective skill of the society. Two results flow out of it.
1. What an individual does is limited to the individual while, if the same thing is done by the society, everyone will be benefitted.
2. In case of society taking over the work of the individual, the benefit of the individual can increase manifold. To organise is to give to everyone in the organisation the skill possessed by one single lone individual.
Q- Explain education in this sense.
A- Education is social organisation. The society has collected the essence of its experience as its own wisdom and devised a system by which it can be passed on to posterity in a short period. The experience is not directly collected as experience, but as its essence which means the physical experience is collected by the mind as its own knowledge.
Q- So, it is a fund of knowledge. How can this be communicated to posterity? In what form?
A- What was lived as experience in one era, comes to another era as laws, truths, knowledge, values, etc.
Q- Society that long valued Time settles on punctuality.
A- Yes. Societies that were wiped out by promiscuity take to monogamy. Having long practised corruption, suddenly society discovers the value of incorruptible integrity.
Q- Then education is the essence of past experience.
A- That is the core. To administer it to the young of the society, a system is called for.
Q- Of course, the organisation of education is multifaceted. One gets educated when he knows the value of education. Knowing education as an ORGANISATION, he is able to serve the society and also receive an enormous benefit from it.
A- There is only one knowledge in the society. One can get it in many ways. Here we discuss education. An organisation organises the result, augmenting it many times. Social knowledge is mostly in potential. A system liberally draws upon it. It does so from below. Doing so from above, the results will be many times greater.
Q- Man is on the mental plane. The organised effort of yoga takes him across several planes to the Superconscient. So, education when approached as an organisation instead of a social skill to be acquired can open the heavens. It has the power to create geniuses.
A- No.34 is Eternal is the Individual.
Q- The Rishis who had said the Individual is Brahman, have also denied reality to the Individual. Why?
A- To know is different from doing it. We do not do things we know to be true. The Rishis had seen the reality is Brahman and everything is Brahman. But we do not act from our understanding. We act from our vital. The Individual was not real to the vital of the Rishi.
Q- This being an important principle, I wish to consider it from as many views as possible.
A- Firstly, we need to know why HE says that.
Q- As there is ONE and only ONE, the Individual is, of course, the Eternal. Sri Aurobindo’s position is the eternal became the world in Ignorance, became the Individual in evolution which is evolving into the Eternal. So, the Individual has the reality of the Eternal. The Rishis conceived that the only reality in yoga is the Superconscient and all else does not have that reality. Their reality is in ignorance only.
A- We should see it in terms of the 3rd dimension of Time.
The Individual is in Time.
The Eternal is in Timelessness.
The Eternal emerging in the Individual is in the 3rd dimension of Time.
Q- Can we see it as contradictions. The Eternal in Timelessness and the Individual in Time are in contradiction. The Eternal emerging in the Individual as Godhead on earth is to reconcile the contradiction and see they are really complements. The one becoming the other is the reconciliation. The ONE Brahman splits into the Superconscient Eternal and the Individual in evolution. The Individual evolving to become the Superconscient removes the contradiction.
A- We say the Individual is in the outer, the Eternal is in the inner. The one evolving into the other is in the inner that includes the outer.
Q- Can we think of a life example?
A- We can, but it will not be fully appropriate. The teacher teaching the child is an action in the outer where the Individuality of the child is built up. The boy learning on his own is in the inner and can be said to be the Eternal for him. The boy going in and learning as the Eternal in him would learn is the 3rd dimension of Time. In other words, what the teacher consciously induces in the child, the child himself seeks on his own.
Q- What is the role of the teacher?
A- To teach the child to think is very difficult. To teach the child NOT to think and BE himself, the teacher has to provide the child the environment which the genius is born with.
Q- Do you think it is possible?
A- An MIT professor of computer science says the productive forces released in the society are 10% of the present world economy. Considering their respective volumes at present, the professor says it works out to be 100,000% more than the industrial economy.
Q- That is a thousand times more. It is to say Internet has the ability to multiply the present productivity a thousand times.
A- It is possible to conduct secluded experiments or show from statistics how this transition takes place. A thousand times greater intelligence is an I.Q. of 100,000.
Q- I do not doubt that. I am asking whether it is possible for the teacher.
A- An I.Q. of over 180 is considered genius. With that great possibility, 180 is not impossible to achieve.
Q- Maybe it is possible in one case.
A- If it is possible in one case, it will be possible in all cases when the method is organised into a system.
Q- A method becomes a SYSTEM when the information is impersonal. Or, one man’s method becomes a general system when people are capable of picking up the subtle skills demanded by the work.
A- That is what we call social maturity with respect to that work. We can call it change of consciousness by change of attitude.
Q- Why does the attitude change? Or how does it change?
A- Attitude changes when understanding changes. New information changes the existing attitude. Education brings in new information.
Q- Education is the descent of mind on the body. Suppose we want to pursue the inquiry to the end, at the bottom of this descent is the ascent by energy and work, all of which begins with the beginning of movement of No.9 to No.8 on the scale of 1 to 9. The very first movement of Matter is by self-conception, which is the evolutionary version of Self-conception of the Absolute.
A- No. 35 is the Absolute never ceases to be the Absolute.
Q- Tradition posits a difference between the Absolute and the relative. Now that difference has become an unbridgeable gulf.
A- Sri Aurobindo makes matters simple saying,
· The Absolute became the universe and the world.
· It exists in eight planes in different intensities.
· The appearance changes, not the inner content.
· Even that appearance is to the Mind that views and not the object that is viewed.
· Not only mind, but each plane perceives It as itself, not
· as It really is.
· Mind is in the plane of Force and sees Force as Force, not as something that issues from Being.
· His example is if a vessel is made of gold, the vessel too is gold. It does not cease to be gold.
· All that is on earth is earth, is of earth. Earth is the fifth extension of material force which is Spiritual Force viewed by Mind. The Spirit is the experience of Sat which emanates from the Absolute. All, therefore, find their origin in the Absolute. By changing the appearance, the Absolute does not change Itself. Dosai or idli does not cease to be rice because it is so cooked. The dress does not cease to be cotton or polyester or nylon as it becomes a dress. We know hate is inverted love, darkness is dense light, Ignorance is knowledge self-absorbed.
Q- No.36. The law of contradictions is not the final arbiter. We see the truth in this phenomenon often, but it never makes an impression on us.
· The college team is composed of the best players in the two opposite teams in the college sports.
· The two families that were in a feud find their children — Romeo and Juliet — fall in love and die for each other.
· A litigant when he goes to appeal sometimes employs the lawyer who opposed his case as he finds him able.
· Enemies in a war are allies in the next war.
· Contending parties in local elections are companions in the Assembly elections.
· Separated couples frequently find their united life more intimate than before.
o The two opposing teams were created to sharpen their skills so that they may win at the state level.
o The two families were in a feud for a generation to outgrow the experience of hatred.
o To the client the case is more important than who the lawyer is. He can go one step beyond which he does not.
o Winning the cause overcomes prejudices of a previous enmity.
o Village is more important than election battle.
o Marriage is more important than personal prestige.
Contradictions are created by Mind whereas creation does not end with the mental plane. To consider contradictions final is to consider mind the only plane. Contradictions of the mental plane are not valid in that limited sense either above the mind or below in the vital and body planes. Even within the plane of Mind one contradiction is not valid in another context of the same plane. Contradictions have complete use and significance in a limited role. To make it the final arbiter is neither possible nor necessary.
A- The ONE Absolute manifested as Sat as well as Asat. The contradictions we see in life are an expression of that. To overcome the contradictions is to go back to the Absolute.
Q- At our level, can we say, if we overcome the contradictions we move from mind to Supermind?
A- Yes. The Supermind is a plane which retains its relations to the Absolute. No. 37 is ‘Not Time, but Supermind has created the world’.
Q- What about Supramental Time?
A- The Supermind exists in Time as well as Timelessness. Mind links both planes.
Q- Does not Sat create the universe by extending One into the Many? Again it extends into Time and Space. Are they not creation of the world or the universe?
A- Sat extends Itself in 5 or 6 ways and they all enable the Supermind to create the universe. It is by its cosmic determinism that Supermind creates the world. Even the ONE is determined as the Many by the Supermind. The Mind is its subordinate power. Mind creates life and Matter which constitute the world.
Q- Our question really is whether Mind—Brahma—created the world or Time created the world. If either of them is true the theory of Sri Aurobindo will not find a right exposition.
A- How do they conflict?
Q- Sri Aurobindo has left them unanswered but has given all the parts of the answer for us to know it.
A- Let us not exercise our minds in areas HE left untouched. The main question is we have to accept the contradictions of life as final if we believe that Mind has created the world.
Q- Maybe we will tend to believe in karma too.
A- If we concede that Time has created the world, it will lead to the possibility of the dissolution of the world when we move into Timelessness. The Marvel, the 3rd dimension of Time, the fulfilment He speaks of will have no further reality. If Time created the world, the world moving into Timelessness dissolves. Sri Aurobindo posits that the world can exist in Time, or Timelessness. It can move into Simultaneous Time.
Q- HIS position is the world is Brahman, a whole, an integrated whole. Neither Time nor Timelessness is a whole; both are parts and cannot contain a world that is a whole. The Absolute is such a whole in its original status and comes back to such a whole in its evolution. This is spiritual evolution. In such an evolution of SPIRIT the wholeness of the world emerges as a Marvel. The idea of Time creating the world is of the Mind, partial, erroneous.
A- No. 38 is — ‘unless the world is divinely explained, nothing is explained’.
Q- This is from the Chapter “Divine and Undivine” where HE says the positive can be fully enjoyed only when the negative is fully known.
A- Why should it be so?
Q- Theoretically the positive and negative are parts. To know the whole one should experience both. But there seems to be more. By experiencing the negative, one gets the taste of the thing behind the negative which is of the whole.
A- Not clear.
Q- We do not know how thieves live. To us they do not exist. By not knowing them we think we lose nothing. Suppose one is a jail superintendent, he will know the mind of the robbers, pickpockets, etc. Among them there is a code of behaviour which will be upheld at all costs. There we see that these criminals are TRUE to each other, they do not spare their efforts for decades to wreak vengeance upon their enemies on behalf of their comrades. Darkness, we see, lives by light. Or Falsehood is sustained by Truth. This is essential knowledge one cannot afford to miss. Simply put, in adversity one knows those who are his real friends. It is a rare knowledge. Those who become bankrupt, will know the errors they must avoid.
A- In Sri Aurobindo’s sense, the Absolute descended into creation as opposites and evolves to reconcile them. Therefore, the negative is something to be experienced, not omitted. There is a businessman who asks everyone he meets, “Have you lost money? If not, you will not know the business secrets”. The experience of the negative teaches the value of the positive.
Q- Similarly those who have not experienced affection, goodness, or affluence cannot emerge out of the cruel grip of disease or poverty. Otherwise, one would think poverty is inevitable. The existence of affluence, its caressing touch of human personality enables him to know the transitory nature of poverty and its cruelty.
A- Life has two sides. The fortunate are on the right side. One needs to experience both sides before fullness emerges in his life.
Q- The knowledge of Self-existent Goodness, however exalted it is, is incomplete without experiencing organised meanness tending to evil actuated by perversity. The further knowledge that meanness, evil and perversity are the intentional inversion of that Self-existent Good liberates one from Ignorance.
A- So, it is the subliminal that pushes the surface to seek things it does not like so that the aims of subliminal will be served. Hence obstacles are opportunities.
Q- No. 39 is ‘The Negative is not the opposite of the positive but what is not covered by it’. This is explained in No.38. Explained by a business example or a family event, it will be clear. That may be superfluous.
A- I should like one.
Q- All successful men at the moment of great success know they are positively guided by their earlier failures. We are after social success, affluence, etc. No one crosses that level and seeks even psychological aims. Neither will do for yoga. My approach is to live the social life according to the understanding of life by the ideas of yoga.
A- We concentrate on one aspect of work and excel. The other aspect neglected slowly earns dislike and later becomes the rival or enemy. Lawyers concentrate on court appearance and slowly come to treat the judge’s office as the enemy. It becomes a wall of prejudice. Seniors know the value of office. The experience in the court is those lawyers who command the support of the office become most successful. The office is considered negative.
Q- Can you apply it to marriage?
A- It is only these issues which will gain precision. Also, it is these people who will easily turn off because of sensitivity.
Q- Is there a secret?
A- A spouse comes to complete one’s personality. Man makes it into an occasion of conflict.
Q- How can a marriage become successful?
A- I am sure, you are NOT asking how love can emerge in marriage and grow. You are perhaps asking how a divorce can be avoided?
Q- Of course, that is my question, but I shall be interested to know whether it is possible for love to survive in a marriage.
A- The simple fact is we do NOT have the consideration for the spouse which we have for our intimate friends whose sweet relationship has survived for long. Friendships as well as partnerships survive because of good manners.
Q- Good manners issuing from goodwill keep friendships alive.
A- In a marriage the occasions to dominate the other, or where one thinks he can dominate are many. No one, however docile one is, MISSES such opportunities.
Q- The lasting marriage will be proof of this. What about love?
A- Premarital love is attraction, not love. The question of love surviving marriage arises only in cases where there was love before marriage.
Q- Does it mean I do not know what love is?
A- Love is selfless. Youthful attraction speaks of energy of youth, not love. Love where it exists seeks the fulfilment of the other’s aspiration.
Q- In such a case, it may be rare.
A- We do not distinguish between Romance and Love.
Q- I do not know that distinction.
A- There can be Romance outside Love and vice versa.
Q- I have thought only in terms of Romantic Love.
A- Had there been Love, how can it die? Love knows no death. Attraction can pass away. Liking can turn into disliking.
Q- How does it die?
A- It is better to say that Love remains unfulfilled, instead of saying love is dead.
Q- It is unfulfilled when it is one sided.
A- The question arises whether true love has not been born in the human context.
Q- Perhaps human life as it is does not permit Love to be born. If it is born, it is one sided. If it is from both sides, as in Romeo and Juliet, it is fulfilled in death.
A- Divine Love is Love. It is love for the Divine, not for the spouse.
Q- Perhaps the ONE ideal that stirs up humanity is Love.
A- Any touch of that Love awakens all senses in man. Love came into creation to reunite it with the Divine. That spiritual love or divine love finds its own version in human circumstances. Hence its attraction.
Q- How does the negative become positive in love?
A- Man in love is not aware of any negative side at all. As love recedes the negative surfaces. Love that is there can never see the negative side at all. At the merest surface, manners refuse to see the negative side. Character trains itself to be incapable of seeing the negative. Spiritual vision sees the whole positive.
Q- So if men of character endowed with good manners marry similar women, they will preserve the marriage.
A- Yes. That reduces to the formula of not trying to dominate the other. Spiritually, it is trying to surrender to the other.
Q- Suppose a person is in love with another in the real sense of the word, marries one who is also in love with him, will that love last forever?
A- This is an impossible hypothesis. Still, assuming it to be so, such a love will be everlasting.
Q- What is the objection to this hypothesis?
A- Humans seek occasions in marriage for a growth of their psychology. Even when the boy and girl make it as their own choice, as it is done in unconsciousness, the one who is in love will choose another incapable of love.
Q- Is there an ideal condition in which the love in one’s marriage can last?
A- There is none as humanity knows. In case one is adventurous, he can seek another CONSCIOUSLY who is capable of love and assuming such a one is available, he can try to maintain it. For that he must function from the subliminal or make values normal in life.
Q- The aim here should not be marriage, but love.
A- Exactly. That is why it cannot be practical. Love of that level moves into the realms of Spirituality which is presently alien to domestic life.
Q- This will be a new experiment where he must give up sex relations.
A- That is why I said, it will remain in the realm of the ideal. It does not mean it is utterly impossible, but it is very difficult, as husband and wife must rise above the physical life into the vital energy and mental idealism based on the spiritual light.
Q- As Ishwara Shakti is the principle of creation, my feeling, however remote it is, is that it must be possible.
A- That is possible and is easy to explain. Its main ideas are,
· Physical life is animal life.
· Love must be felt not as an idea, but as an inspiration.
· Selfless self-giving must be the only rule of relationship.
· It is possible for the soul on the surface-being.
· Childbirth is to insist on physical life.
· Romance and adventure are to overcome knots in the inner psychological make up.
· Energies of all descriptions will overflow.
Q- What are the indices for one to qualify?
A-
· Must be born in affluence.
· Must be brought up in an atmosphere saturated with affection.
· No work he has done so for should have failed.
· Should not have offended any one.
· Must be devoid of ambition or jealousy.
· The smile of the soul must don the face.
· To please must be an article of faith.
Q- That is quite something.
A- No.40 is ‘There is no illusion. It is Ignorance’.
Q- Shankara created the theory of illusion. To him the world is an illusion. Sri Aurobindo in two chapters explains HIS view that what Shankara calls illusion is really Ignorance. No. 41 is‘ what is NOT there, mind cannot conceive of’. To reply to Shankara in his own words — illusion is an illusion. Mind is of the Supermind. Supermind creates all and Mind can see all. Mind cannot see what Supermind has not created. That is how Sri Aurobindo changes Shankara’s illusion into evolutionary Ignorance. Also HE declares the two analogies of rope and hallucination won’t hold, as dream and hallucination are real and not illusions.
A- No. 42 is ‘Ignorance is inversion of knowledge’.
Q We know HIS philosophy overcomes the shortcomings of the Rishis by HIS theory of Ignorance.
A- One of the major defects of our tradition is it is unable to explain the presence of evil. It is incapable of explaining the world divinely.
Q- HE calls evil not evil but Ignorance and says it can be overcome, overcoming separation. He is the only one who has given a solution to evil. To HIM there is no negative. Assertion of ego enables the simple contrary to become the complex evil.
A- So, evil, Ignorance, negative, ego, separation, surface go together.
Q- Yes. That is the right understanding.
A- Vedas and the Vedantic Rishis tried to define Knowledge and Ignorance first separating God and the world. So, they could not handle the problem evil is.
Q- We start saying God and the world are one and therefore Knowledge and Ignorance are one, which means evil and good are one.
A- That is why HE says Ignorance is an inversion of knowledge.
Q- How does the inversion occur?
A- Knowledge is that which knows on each of the 7 planes of existence the truth of that plane. In the descent, knowledge moves down, moving away from each of the higher planes. Ignorance accrues thus.
1. Knowledge that moves away from the Absolute turns into original Ignorance as it forgets the origin.
2. Next is the cosmic Ignorance.
3. Universal Ignorance follows.
4. Here it moves into temporal Ignorance.
5. In the lower hemisphere, it starts with the ignorance of the other worlds.
6. Parts of the being not knowing each other is called constitutional Ignorance.
7. Last comes the practical Ignorance of not knowing what to do.
Q- Can you briefly explain each of them?
A- The salient points in this are,
1. Practical Ignorance will persist until original Ignorance dissolves.
2. Constitutional Ignorance is the crux, as it is here separation is established.
3. A break must begin here.
4. We live in the physical world. The universe exists in several worlds where hostile forces, subtle forces, cosmic forces, spiritual forces live. All of them are in touch with our lives. As soon as we act out of the routine, the concerned forces sail into action. Protection from them comes from occult knowledge.
5. Cosmic Self reveals when ego is dissolved.
6. To move away from Time, one should move away from the surface.
Q- What then is the taste of Ignorance?
A- That is the prerogative of human choice.
Q- Does it mean we enjoy ignorance?
A- God has created the world to enjoy the taste of Ignorance.
Q- It means HIS meaning of Ignorance is different.
A- To HIM Ignorance is to forget HIMSELF.
Q- I do not understand the idea of taste of ignorance.
A- It only means enjoyable unconsciousness.
Q- I can understand either or both, not in combination.
A- It means man is vital.
Q- Why should anyone love Ignorance?
A- One loves what one is.
Q- What then is awakening?
A- The Becoming is Ignorance. Being is Knowledge. Parts of being love Ignorance. The psychic loves knowledge.
Q- Ignorance wanting to know knowledge or become knowledge is awakening in this yoga.
A- Awakening means knowing I am ignorant.
Q- That is the one thing inconceivable to man. To him he is the repository of wisdom.
A- Next is 43: ‘Analysis of action moves away to ego and Purusha’.
Q- What HE calls action here is a mental movement such as thought or hunger or anger.
A- What is analysis?
Q- When we do not analyse we become the action — anger or hunger. Analysis is thinking. To think we must be away from the object of anger or thought.
A- Thinking is a mental act.
Q- Does mind act by detaching itself from its action?
A- Yes. Ego is in the mind as its part.
Q- Ego is Purusha’s external appearance in Ignorance.
A- Thinking separates ego and the action.
Q- Purusha is ego and ego is action. Thinking is an exertion of mind to detach itself from itself and stand apart to know what it is. That is called analysis.
A- Thinking is the process by which vital and mental are separated.
Q- Mind is submerged in the vital. Thinking emancipates the mind. Initially the mind sees the anger as a separate entity. Further thinking reveals the ego and finally the Purusha is seen.
A- Thinking emancipates mind from the vital and releases the Purusha that is buried in the mind.
Q- The Purusha is in the inner mind.
A- Thinking opens the inner mind.
Q- What will open the subliminal?
A- Consecration.
Q- Distinguish between thinking and consecration.
A- Thinking activates the light - Purusha - of the mind. Consecration makes the surface FULL and opens it to the fullness of the subliminal. Therefore thinking is of no help to us here.
Q- No.44 is ‘Reality is wholly known when the Spirit and Nature are discovered in the surface and the depth’.
A- Can you please distinguish this from the position of tradition?
Q- The tradition confined itself to the surface.
A- Sri Aurobindo speaks of the surface as well as ego with respect to the tradition.
Q- He also says that the Rishis have not gone beyond the Akshara Brahmam, the immutable Self. So these three go together?
A- The Subliminal is the entire life, called the depth. The surface is its limited inversion.
Q- Distinguish between the surface and subliminal more fully.
A- Our entire being belongs to the surface. The whole earth goes into the surface.
Q- Then the subliminal covers what? What about the subconscient? Is not earth the inconscient? How can earth belong to the surface?
A- The subconscient is a whole. It has unity. It does not belong to the surface, nor the inconscient earth. In one sense they do not belong to the surface. The earth belongs to the surface in our common parlance. All that our minds conceive of earth and its life belong to the surface.
Q- The surface being is the limited inversion of the whole that the subliminal is. It is created to complete the perfection of Ignorance. Traditional yogas remained there. As ego is there presiding over the surface being, their realisations become egoistic realisations. They rise up to the immutable Brahman. Realisation of the partial being takes us to a partial realisation of the Akshara Brahmam.
A- To have a full realisation we must go further, abolish the division between the depth and the surface. Now we know Nature on the surface and Spirit in the depth. To discover both in both places gives us a full realisation.
Q- No. 45 is the four types of knowledge: surface, subliminal, intuitional and knowledge by identity.
A- The definitions are easy but to know their import is difficult.
1. Surface knowledge is what we have through the senses. The object outside — a person or a thing — is represented to us by the sensation of seeing or touch, etc. This is sensational knowledge. It is separative knowledge acquired indirectly through the senses.
2. Subliminal knowledge is the same as sensational one, except that its reach is far wider. It is instinctual knowledge. One knows what is outside his sense reach
3. Intuitional knowledge is not reached by senses, rather by avoiding the senses. Mind gets this knowledge directly, not through the senses.
4. Knowledge by identity. Here one becomes identified with the object and therefore neither the medium of the senses nor intuition is called for.
Q- Can you offer greater explanations?
A- No. 1 of surface knowledge needs no explanation. No. 2 is the subliminal is the point or plane where the subconscient meets the Superconscient. Imagine a world of light above and darkness below. The above is Superconscient and the below is subconscient. The entire history of earth is in the subconscient. It is the inversion of the Superconscient. They meet at a plane. The meeting plane is subliminal. It is universal. The Subliminal is the evolving head of the subconscient by the touch of the Superconscient. The Inconscient by evolution becomes subconscient. Nature is trying to perfect Ignorance. As the universe in its attempt to intensify its consciousness creates the individuals, the subliminal in order to perfect its Ignorance, creates the surface by sealing off a small portion. The sealing off is achieved by twisting the subliminal so as to prevent the surface to disperse into the subliminal. Within the surface Nature tries to perfect Ignorance by confining knowledge into ego, mind and Time. Therefore, one reaches the subliminal from the surface by emerging out of the ego, Time and Mind all of which make the infinite knowledge finite.
o When giving up selfish egoistic attitudes, one emerges out of ego.
o By not dwelling on the future or the past, one comes out of Time into Timelessness.
o By ceasing to think, one moves into the Silence of the Higher mind, i.e. comes out of mind.
The Rishis did so by concentration and moved from the surface to the inner mind, which is only the depth of the surface and not the subliminal. In the inner mind is situated the Purusha, a door to Nirvana and a door to the psychic. The subliminal is beyond the inner mind which CANNOT be reached by concentration but can only be reached by consecration. The psychic dwells in the subliminal cave.
o Moving to the inner mind enables one to rise to the levels of the spiritualised mind.
No.3 is the intuitional knowledge which lies below the Overmind and above the illumined Mind of the Rishi. Intuition is of the Mind, which can reach the object directly without the medium of senses, i.e. one can see with eyes closed, hear shutting the ears. No.4 HE gives the only example of our being aware of our existence.
Q- No. 47 is the seven Ignorances. Knowledge becoming Ignorance is a process of 1) Self-forgetfulness, 2) inversion and 3) self-absorption. It is here Sri Aurobindo crosses Mind into Supermind, goes beyond the Rishis to see the fullness of the Absolute. To conceive that God has shed His knowledge to become Ignorance step by step by forgetting the planes of origin, cosmos, universe, Time, subtle and occult worlds and finally the fullness of the embodied being, one needs the supramental vision. HE says that will give the practical knowledge of what to do next. The Vedas saw knowledge and Ignorance only in terms of God, the Upanishads saw them as two separate entities. The definitions of Knowledge and Ignorance is a major key in understanding The Life Divine. It is a pity that a well-known authority on Sri Aurobindo should declare that HE sought confirmation of His realisations in our scriptures. Our scriptures are products of Mind, an instrument of Ignorance. Next is 47 which says there is no Ignorance in any of the planes down to Matter.
A- The planes of creation are planes in the grades of involution. They begin from Being, Consciousness, Delight, comprehension, Ignorance seeking knowledge, energy and inert Matter. The plane of Supermind is the plane of Comprehension. Mind is described as an instrument of ignorance seeking knowledge. Life is the plane of energy. Nonlife is Matter. How are they created? Being — by the Self-conception of the Absolute. Consciousness — by the Being desiring to be conscious of itself. Ananda - Delight — by the consciousness desiring to experience itself. Supermind — by the Being wishing to comprehend itself. Mind — by Supermind splitting into Timeless and Time planes. Life — by the consciousness of Mind playing on its will. Matter — by the energy of Form losing its movement. The Psychic plane lies between Matter and Life as the inversion of Delight. Matter evolving collects the essence of the experience of the soul and becomes the psychic. There is no Ignorance in any of these planes. Knowledge is one of the 12 aspects of the Spirit. When knowledge chooses to invert or self-absorb, Ignorance is created. Ignorance was created NOT as a process of creation but by the intention of the Absolute to hide in Himself so that HE may have the joy of discovery. Sri Aurobindo says that there can be a creation without Ignorance, but this creation cannot do without Ignorance.
Q- No.48 — ‘Ignorance is the highest product of creation’. Normally it smacks of a violent contradiction, but it is true in two senses: 1. Ignorance is a later product to knowledge and 2. Evolution begins only when Ignorance becomes perfect. In the process of transformation, the greater the Ignorance, the greater is the emerging knowledge out of it. The point at which Ignorance becomes perfect is the point where the psychic begins to emerge. Is there anything else we need to know of Ignorance?
A- Maybe we have completed the ideas about Ignorance. As far as intellectual knowledge is concerned, we have covered all points.
Q- What else is there?
A- Man’s unconsciousness has two powerful expressions:
- He is unaware of what he has lost.
- He is equally unaware of what he has got.
Q- Maybe we discussed this too.
A- Quite possible. It does not matter how much we know, how many times we discuss it, it will all be like walking on the beach forever without ever entering the sea. You can’t jump into the sea without learning to swim.
Q- What are you driving at?
A- To use something, say money, as a thing and to use it as an organisation has a vast difference. Marriage is an organisation. A man marries a woman and she enjoys FULLY the right of her being a rightful wife. There is no difference in the functional value of a concubine and a wife. The concubine is outside the society. Using money as an organisation is like elevating a concubine to wifehood. According to our view, if one can use Money as Organisation, his income of Rs.10,000/- will have a value double that, even ten times.
Q- I do not follow.
A- We have money. We use it as a thing. We lose vastly in that process. We do not know what we are losing. So, we are ignorant, we enjoy being ignorant but we do not KNOW we are losing the great evolutionary uses of knowledge. That is the extent or character of our unconsciousness.
Q- Why don’t you elaborate?
A- Not only that. We don’t know what we are losing by not being truthful, though we know truth is of value.
Q- Yes, Truth alone can transform us.
A- But, we refuse to be truthful and don’t know we are false.
Q- What is the way out?
A- One should awake to the need of being truthful. It is called aspiration.
Q- Is there no aspiration in any of us?
A- In ‘The Hymn to Mother of Radiance’s’ Sri Aurobindo says what aspiration is.
Q- That is a Himalayan awakening.
A- We also do not know that if we have that aspiration, Mother will accomplish the ultimate in us.
Q- Where else are we?
A- Perhaps we are still perfecting Ignorance. That being the perfect product of creation, is it not worth aiming at? In our situation, to be aware of the fact that we are ignorant is an achievement.
Q- I wish you give me an answer that will shake me out of what I am.
A- We compromise at many points. It must stop. At some point we must be ashamed of what we are.
Q- That will work for those who live on bribes, carry tales, and exploit others.
A- I have about 15 % arrears in my office work. As no one questions me, I am not ashamed of the arrears. My clearing those arrears will introduce a serious note in my life. I am dull and insensitive enough not to worry about it.
Q- There will be many such arrears in anyone’s life.
A- By removing all such areas, one will become sensitive, if no aspiration awakes.
Q- That is not enough?
A- It will keep the temple clean for aspiration to awake.
Q- Is aspiration so great a thing?
A- We are not aware how dull we are.
Q- No.48 is ‘A simple contrary becomes the complex perverse evil’.
A- The ONE divides into positive and negative. The negative by neglect is upgraded into the unwanted danger and finally branded as evil. There is no real evil in life. Anywhere we keep off some persons, they take on themselves the hue of rivals or even enemies. This is an observed fact. The next is Matter is Delight of existence, No.49.
Q- The process of creation explains how Matter came into existence. In the evolution Matter gives birth to life. In the above statement the following ideas are implied:
· Sat enjoys Bliss after becoming conscious and desiring to experience itself.
· Sat inverts as Matter.
· If the static Bliss is the experience of Sat, the experience of Matter is Delight, the active Bliss. The Joy sought by The Absolute is greater than Bliss, which emerges in Matter becoming Delight.
The next is No.50. It is ‘Ignorance, Inertia and division resist the transformation of Matter’.
A- Matter is created by division. Therefore it comes last. Matter is the result of the vital losing its energy. Thus inertia arises and stands in the way of its transformation. The creation of Matter has nothing to do with Ignorance. Matter in its origin is without Ignorance. Ignorance is created by Mind by forgetting its origin of Supermind. The stages of Ignorance growing into perfection are,
· Mind forgetting Supermind — Origin of Ignorance.
· Mind’s identification with its work.
· Mind’s identification with itself.
· Similar identifications with the vital.
· The two-fold identification of Mind with the body.
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