Power of Harmony
The third important principle in the first chapter is that we can convert oppositions and disharmonies into harmonies. In one sense this may be considered the most central principle of the entire book, for in each chapter he presents one of the great apparent contradictions of life and shows how they can be reconciled at a higher level. Spirit and Matter, Being and Non-Being, the Individual and the Collective, Knowledge and Ignorance, ego and Self are all oppositions created by our mental consciousness that are harmonized in the Supramental Consciousness.
What he writes is not truth of philosophy, but Truth of Life. He says, without any qualification, all problems of life are problems of harmony. We understand harmony to be smooth relations within our family or at our work place. But the disharmonies of life go deeper than that. There are disharmonies between what we know we should do and what we want to do. Our mind wants one thing, but our vital wants another. The disharmony is within ourselves. There are disharmonies also between our mind and spirit. Our ego wants one thing and our soul may want us to go in another direction. There is disharmony between the desires of our ego and the egos of those around us with whom we constantly compete to prove who is more important, more knowledgeable, more skilled, or more cultured. Our lives are filled with disharmonies. If we want to overcome the oppositions coming to us from outside, to bring things into harmony, we must become humble and pleasant in all circumstances. This can be done if you attune your mind to be in harmony with the higher consciousness.
In the last chapter of the book, Sri Aurobindo tells us how to solve all these problems of disharmony. Regard every enemy as a friend. Regard every challenge as an opportunity. Regard every impossibility as a possibility that you should rise to make real. If you do that, you come upon the ultimate secret of life, the secret that Spirit can move Matter. If you do what you should do and can do, you can make money, accomplishment, social recognition and even matter comes under your control. He ends the book by saying Spirit has total power over life and matter. When we have that power, matter is transformed and life becomes Divine.
We do not need to transform matter in order to bring unfailing success into our lives. We need only to be true devotees to call that power down into life. We are talking today about moving life, making life respond. The Life Divine says that we have the power to move life. All of you must have seen in your lives that when you move towards Mother, life moves towards you.
This chapter urges us to discover that all the oppositions and contradictions which we face in life are really representations of a greater truth prompting us to widen and elevate our consciousness to achieve a higher reconciling harmony. In the next two chapters he deals with the grand opposition between materialism, which insists that matter is the only reality, and asceticism, which proclaims that the only reality is the transcendent Spirit. He reveals that both are aspects of a greater truth, the Omnipresent Reality.
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