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That Energy, together with the Consciousness that supports it, is released slowly, in thin jets as the evolutionary trajectory unfolds. It manifests itself in forms of Matter, inanimate at first, animate later with the infusion of Life-Energy. Finally it takes a leap from the conscious animal to the reasoning human being in whom it exceeds itself.
The burden of Inconscience
But man, even after reaching the heights, carries within his being the essence of the original animality, the dead weight of the subconscient, the downward gravitational pull of the original Inertia and Inconscience. In fact the Inconscience still controls the conscious evolution which is manifest in "its power for limitation, its law of difficult development, its immense force for retardation and frustration"..."This control by the original Inconscience over the consciousness emerging from it takes the general shape of a mentality struggling towards knowledge but itself, in what seems to be its fundamental nature, an Ignorance." (Ibid)
However man is still a transitional being. He is capable of a further growth, is capable of a further ascent along the hierarchy of consciousness. He has to shift from an evolution in the Ignorance to a mightier evolution in Knowledge. He has to grow from the darkness of the Ignorance and Inconscience into a "fully conscious being, a divine manhood or a spiritual and supramental Supermanhood". (Ibid)
Evolution: Scientific and Spiritual
This terrestrial evolution has a double perspective. The first perspective is what science studies, an evolution where continuity is maintained by heredity. (Ibid, pg.858) It is a cosmic evolution that is required for the maintenance of the species, for the race as the individual is a perishable instrument. The second perspective is spiritual, it is the evolution of consciousness and through consciousness where the soul-entity, the psychic being outgrows the life-span of an individual and comes back through a process of rebirth, projecting a new personality. Each life marks a victory over Matter by "a greater progression of consciousness" (Ibid) enabling the Spirit to fully manifest in Matter.
However the second perspective may seem superfluous. The possibility of a being of Knowledge to manifest in the matrix of Ignorance may seem to be too overstretched. Sri Aurobindo therefore takes up the study of another construction before returning back to his original contention.
The question of Teleology
While admitting the subtle nuances of the manifestation and rebirth, it can also be claimed that as each being is an expression of the Divine Existence, one carries the Delight of Existence -the Ananda of Sachchidananda within itself. Therefore there is no need for change or progress for it. The display of actualized possibilities is sufficiently provided by the infinite variations of forms and types of consciousness. There can be no teleological purpose in creation for all is there in the Infinite, the Divine has nothing to lose or gain. The creation exists solely for the delight of it. There is no scope for progressive perfection and therefore no scope for a further evolution in consciousness. (Ibid, pg.859)
A world of Ignorance
The principles of creation appear to be permanent and unchanging for each species keeps its own characteristics and do not change into some other species. Some species, like the Dinosaurs may perish but it is because the Consciousness-Force withdraws its life-delight and turns to create others for its own pleasure. If the Consciousness-Force has created Life and Mind after Matter, it does not necessarily follow that it would progress to manifest the Supermind. For the Mind and Supermind belong to two entirely different domains -the Mind is poised in Ignorance while the Supermind is poised in the higher Divine Knowledge. This world is intended to be a world of Ignorance, there is no need to bring down the Higher Powers to perfect it. Man cannot proceed further in terms of consciousness, his Mind cannot progress to Infinity. If perchance the soul of man wants to proceed beyond humanity, it must move out of the cosmic existence to a plane of Bliss and Knowledge or into the unmanifest Sachchidananda. (Ibid, pg.860)
Limitations of Science, Psychology & Metaphysics
Sri Aurobindo now makes a critical appraisal of the various scientific approaches to understand the evolutionary process and the manifestation of various gradations and types of being. It is an astute observation that is still relevant after a century of it being written. He explains that while Science deals with reliable facts, its generalisations are exaggerated or short-lived, they are replaced after some time by new theories. And Sri Aurobindo makes an insightful comment about psychology where he says, "several conflicting theories hold the field together" (Ibid, pg.860-861); an observation that still holds true today. Sri Aurobindo explained that to understand metaphysics through science was difficult: in the first case, psychological theories were like shifting quicksand on which no firm metaphysical building could be erected (Ibid, pg.861); in the second case, the whole basis of metaphysics tumbled every time science altered its views. Yet Sri Aurobindo viewed that metaphysical reasoning must be supplemented by psychological insights to know the riddle of existence. Without psychology, metaphysics by itself cannot explain the world. 'All questions of the reality or unreality of the world, its fundamental or ultimate purpose or want of purpose, the destiny of the soul, must be left over till the psychological data have been understood... Metaphysical reasoning by itself could only give us philosophical opinions, psychological verification makes...truth a firm guide in life. It gives us a tangible ladder of ascension by which we rise to our highest truth of being. (CWSA 12, pg 313)
The question of Heredity
Sri Aurobindo's observation that heredity alone cannot be responsible for "persistent and progressive variation" for its tendency "is conservative rather than evolutionary" has stood the test of time. (CWSA 21-22, pg.861)Science has not yet established that the ape grew into man, it rather seems that "a type resembling the ape, but always characteristic of itself and not of apehood, developed within its own tendencies of nature and became what we know as man, the present human being". (Ibid) It has still not been shown if the inferior races were the forefathers of the superior races of man though "such a development within the type is imaginable". (Ibid) There is no proof that Matter developed into Life and Life-energy developed into Mind-energy, something that materialists claim. Instead it can be said that Life manifested in Matter and Mind in living Matter. There is no proof that any vegetable species turned into an animal existence or any organized form of inanimate Matter became a living organism. Scientists often claim that one day they will manufacture Life in a laboratory. Sri Aurobindo quips that even if it seems Life appears under certain chemical or other conditions, all that can be established by this coincidence "is that in certain physical circumstances Life manifests, not that certain chemical conditions are constituents of Life, are its elements or are the evolutionary cause of a transformation of inanimate into animate Matter". (Ibid) Each grade of being seems to exist by itself and the gradations above or below are not origins or sequences "but only degrees in the continuous scale of earth-nature". (Ibid)
Sri Aurobindo's line of thinking has a bearing for the interest in cloning experiments and the human genome project. Now, when the sequencing of the human genome has been probed thoroughly, it has been found that genetics alone is not sufficient to explain life's complexity. Even complex human diseases cannot be simplistically traced to one or few major genes. It seems that calling DNA the book of life is an exaggeration. Rather the DNA can be compared to a random collection of words from which a meaningful story of life may be assembled. It is being argued that a genetic deterministic paradigm must give way to a new, more complex regulatory paradigm. Richard Strohman writes in the California monthly, April,2001:
'If the announcements from the HGP (Human Genome Project) tell us anything, they tell us we do not know how organisms make themselves.... While it does tell us much about our genome, it tells us little about who we are and how we got that way.... We thought the programme was in the genes, and then in the proteins encoded by genes. But knowing all the individual proteins will not reveal a programme... The programme location is the cell as a whole, and the cell, through signaling pathways, is connected to larger wholes and to the external world..... The real question for all of us are: who chooses, and who decides the future of life?' (Ibid)
The Real-Idea
Sri Aurobindo answered this existential question, 'If it be asked, how then did all these various gradations and types of being come into existence, it can be answered that, fundamentally, they were manifested in Matter by the Consciousness-Force in it, by the power of the Real-Idea building its own significant forms and types for the indwelling Spirit's cosmic existence: the practical or physical method might vary considerably in different grades or stages, although a basic similarity of line may be visible; the creative Power might use not one but many processes or set many forces to act together'. (CWSA 21-22, pg. 862)
Patterns of Consciousness-Force (Chit-Shakti)
In the realm of Matter, the subatomic particles (infinitesimals) infused with immense energy are designed to associate to become atoms (larger infinitesimals) which again associate together to become molecules which form the basis of all sensible objects in the material kingdom. In Life too, the Consciousness-Force designs the single celled microalgae (infinitesimal forms of vegetable life) and amoebae (infinitesimal animalcules), creates an original plasm that gets multiplied, creates the living cell as an unit and creates other minute apparatus like the seed and the gene but always uses the method of grouping and association to produce living organisms. However, Sri Aurobindo points out the reality, "A constant creation of types is visible, but that is no indubitable proof of evolution". (Ibid, pg.862) All these types are indicative of patterns and the variation in patterns with an identical rudimentary basis demonstrates the play of Consciousness-Force or Chit-Shakti with its own Idea to develop all sorts of possibilities in creation. For example, animal species have a rudimentary embryonic pattern for all up to a certain stage. There are also species that are "twy-natured, amphibious, intermediate between one type and another" (Ibid) but all these do not prove that the types developed from one another during evolution.
Non-hereditary Forces
Sri Aurobindo was aware of other non-hereditary forces at work and what he wrote a century back still holds ground: "Other forces than hereditary variation have been at work in bringing about the appearance of new characteristics; there are physical forces such as food, light-rays and others that we are only beginning to know, there are surely others which we do not yet know; there are at work invisible life-forces and obscure psychological forces. For these subtler powers have to be admitted even in the physical evolutionary theory to account for natural selection; if the occult or subconscious energy in some types answers to the need of the environment, in others remains unresponsive and unable to survive, this is clearly the sign of a varying life-energy and psychology, of a consciousness and a force other than the physical at work making for variation in Nature". (Ibid, pg.862-863) This indicates that a consciousness and force other than the hereditary principle is also at work contributing to variations, refinements and mutations in Nature.
The Supramental Being -A New Manifestation
The human being is one of the many patterns constructed; he is the most complex of all creatures, the head of earthly creation but he does not exceed it. He has his native law, his svabhava (inborn nature) and svadharma (true rule and of way of being) and he cannot go outside them. If he has to perfect oneself, he has to do it within his own law of being but not by transcending it. "To exceed himself, to grow into the superman, to put on the nature and capacities of a god would be a contradiction of his self-law, impracticable and impossible". (Ibid, pg.863)
Sri Aurobindo points out to a great decisive act of the Consciousness-Force. He points out that if a supramental being as envisaged has to appear, it must be "a new and independent manifestation". (Ibid) Just as Life and Mind manifested in Matter, in a similar way, Supermind must manifest there independently. The Consciousness-Force or Chit-Shakti has to create new patterns to this end.
A superior creation cannot simply develop out of the present human being for in that case there would be some inkling of the superman present in him just as the animal that developed into human being had some elements of human nature already in itself. There is no such evidence in the present human being, "at most there are only spiritualised mental beings who are seeking to escape out of the terrestrial creation." (Ibid, pg.864) Sri Aurobindo adds a pertinent point, "If by any occult law of Nature such a development of the human being is intended, it could only be by a few in humanity detaching themselves from the race so as to become a first foundation for this new pattern of being. There is no reason to suppose that the whole race could develop this perfection; it cannot be a possibility generalised in the human creature". (Ibid, pg.864)
Existential riddle
Sri Aurobindo presents an existential riddle. If man has evolved out of animal, we do not see any evolutionary stress in the present animal kingdom to exceed itself. Why is that so? The evolutionary stress which was once there has apparently sunk into quiescence! If there is any new stress in the human being to exceed oneself, that is expected to lapse into quiescence too once the superman manifested. But there is no such stress in the present human being. It seems that the very idea of human progress is an illusion. There is no sign that man has "radically progressed during his race-history".(Ibid) True, he has advanced in knowledge, developed Science and developed utilitarian usage of the secret laws of Nature for comfortable living. But he is the same man as he was, with the same qualities and defects as was when he played the game of dice in the Mahabharata. He is not wiser than the ancient seers, not superior in arts and crafts as the artisans of the old and if he gone any further in terms of degree and abundance, it is due the inheritance of the achievements of his forerunners.
Rebirth can be regarded as a potential means of spiritual evolution. But the prevailing old ideas of reincarnation which speak of a constant transmigration from animal to human and vice versa do not serve the purpose. True, Karma was added as an explanation for a return of good or evil done "but there was no suggestion of a progressive evolution from type to higher type, still less of birth into a kind of being that has never yet existed but has still to evolve in the future." (Ibid, pg.865) There seems to be no escape from the world of Ignorance.
A Teleological Cosmos
Is the cosmos teleological? It is a way of thinking that explains everything by their end or goal. Instead of focusing on the past, a teleological view looks at what it wants to achieve in the future. The objection to a teleological cosmos comes both from Science and metaphysics. Science believes that all is a work of inconscient Energy that acts automatically without any purpose. That is why Darwinian evolution believes in mutation and natural selection rather than conscious design or predetermined goals. On the other hand metaphysical reasoning believes that the Universal has already everything in it and there is nothing new to add, accomplish or progress. (Ibid, pg.866)
Teleology: Overruling Scientific objection
It is difficult for the scientific objection to stick to its validity. Evolution actually starts from the Inconscience aided by an evolutionary nisus. From where has the nisus come? Evidently it must be the evolutionary will of a secret Conscious-Being whose push for a progressively graded manifestation has a teleological perspective. The teleology is inherent when the self-operative Truth of Being translates into a self-effective Will-Power that supports a graded and not a haphazard manifestation of evolutionary Consciousness. (Ibid)
Teleology: Overruling Metaphysical objection
The metaphysical objection to a teleological cosmos at first seems to be valid as the Absolute can have no purpose in the manifestation except for the delight of manifestation. And the universal totality seems to be complete by itself without the necessity of any new addition. Sri Aurobindo accepts this logic but also digresses from it. He explains that while the totality is one thing, there are parts like the material world which remains incomplete and do not represent the integral totality. Therefore it receives the yet new immaterial principles which descend from higher gradations of the system into itself to complete its integrality in terms of a real wholeness. Therefore teleology comes into play. "A manifestation of the greater powers of Existence till the whole being itself is manifest in the material world in the terms of a higher, a spiritual creation, may be considered as the teleology of the evolution." (Ibid, pg,867) Sri Aurobindo argues that this teleology does not bring anything new to the totality but expresses the realization of the totality in the part. The totality has many unexpressed, unmanifest potentials which therefore appear to be new and their manifestation can appear to be progressive. There can be no objection if there is a perfect manifestation of all the possibilities inherent in the totality.
While admitting that the manifestation is a Lila -a game played for the sake of playing, Sri Aurobindo also points out that a game carries an object to be accomplished and would be insignificant if that object was not accomplished. The world can be represented as a drama without any denouement, presented without a solution but an "inherently predetermined denouement" (Ibid) is also convincingly possible. "Ananda does not exclude a delight in the working out of a Truth inherent in being, immanent in the Force or Will of being, upheld in the hidden self-awareness of its Consciousness-Force which is the dynamic and executive agent of all its activities and the knower of their significance". (Ibid, pg.867-868)
Date of Update:
31-Oct-26
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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