Process

                                                                                                October 22, 1992

The birth of Science is mastery of mind over matter. Human life was originally confined to the knowledge given to him by his senses. Mind did function in the earlier millennia but mainly to make the sense observation keener and to coordinate the data the senses supplied.

In the history of man, a time came when the Mind began to function on its own, unsupported by the data supplied by the senses. It was thus that the discovery  of zero, the Arabic numerals, the Pure Ideas of Plato and all that today serves as the basis of Science came into being.

After the scientific discovery came into its own as a pre-eminent branch of knowledge, its quest hovered around two ideas:

1. The ultimate substance from which matter arises;

2. The process of any substance or thing coming into being.

Sri Aurobindo in his Magnum Opus Life Divine deals with both these needs of humanity. He describes here the evolution of the next species and how one, with the knowledge of the process of creation can initiate himself into it to evolve into a member of the next species. In Book II, Part I, Chapter I entitled 'Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable', He explains this process (pages 304, 305). Having described the process, He illustrates how a seed emerges into a tree. He also explains how this process explains to us the genes and chromosomes carrying the physical and psychological traits.

Sri Aurobindo finds the discovery of the ultimate substance is of greater importance than the discovery of Galileo and Copernicus. That discovery, He says, was made in ancient India. But the process remained undiscovered till now.

Considering creation from several points of view and dismissing many, He postulates the hypothesis of consciousness emerging out of Inconscience. This assumption, He says, explains all the unexplained processes and unresolved questions. Then He goes on to explain the process.