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In
fact, an exclusive stand-point (either that of the materialist or
that of the mystic) would be psychologically untenable to reconcile
‘Matter’ and ‘Spirit’. Moreover, as these two terms are based on two
distinct paradigms, any forceful reconciliation based on some
over-simplified eclecticism would also be ludicrous.
Sri Aurobindo attempts
reconciliation from a very different perspective without blurring
the distinctive nature of either paradigm. He points out that an
extension of the individual consciousness into the cosmic
consciousness holds the key to the reconciliation. In doing so, He
ushers a consciousness-based psychology as the medium of
reconciliation of materialism and spirituality. This new psychology
(named by contemporary researchers as ‘Integral Yoga Psychology’) is
the ‘greater psychology’ awaiting its hour of fulfillment.
We have already explored how the
cosmic consciousness holds the universal ‘Mind’, the universal
‘Life’ and the universal ‘Matter’. Besides, the essence of each
distinct ‘form’ present as an individual ‘Self’ or ‘Being’ is
represented in the cosmic poise as an universal Self or Being (and
also in the transcendental ‘poise’ as a transcendental Self or
Being).
The
Universal or cosmic Mind is a repertoire of universal thoughts. It
holds in its bosom the mind of the materialist scientist as well as
the mind of the mystic and Yogi. An individual mind is just a
‘selective formation’ or a ‘eddy’ or a ‘whirlpool’ in the ocean of
universal thoughts. Whether this ‘selective formation’ gets
organized as a ‘scientific mind-set’ or a ‘mystic mind-set’ depends
on several factors: the time- spirit, social learning, psychological
predisposition, and more important, soul-choice.
An
individual formation is needed for the organization of a particular
idea-force. However, the universal mind contains and supports,
impartially and universally all idea-forces, whether contradictory
or complementary. The cosmic consciousness therefore is the
‘Reality-Matrix’ where ‘Spirit’ and ‘Matter’ are equally represented
and exist in harmony. The individual mind-set will take up one or
the other stand-point and cannot offer a platform for reconciliation
unless one exceeds ones ‘ego’ to extend into the cosmic
consciousness. In fact, the individual mind has to represent one set
of ideas and carry it to its fullest potential - - this exclusive
venture prevents a harmonization with other excusive mind-sets.
Moreover, to maintain this ‘exclusivity’, one’s individuality has to
be ego-bound. It is only when the individual ego-sense is exceeded
that one can enter the field of cosmic consciousness.
“We
have found already in the cosmic consciousness a meeting-place where
Matter becomes real to Spirit, Spirit becomes real to Matter. For in
the cosmic consciousness Mind and Life are intermediates and no
longer, as they seem in the ordinary egoistic mentality, agents of
separation, fomenters of an artificial quarrel between the positive
and negative principles of the same unknowable Reality. Attaining to
the cosmic consciousness Mind, illuminated by a knowledge that
perceives at once the truth of Unity and the truth of Multiplicity
and seizes on the formulae of their interaction, finds its own
discords at once explained and reconciled by the divine Harmony;
satisfied, it consents to become the agent of that supreme union
between God and Life towards which we tend. Matter reveals itself to
the realizing thought and to the subtilised senses as the figure and
body of Spirit, - Spirit in its self-formative extension. Spirit
reveals itself through the same consenting agents as the soul, the
truth, the essence of Matter. Both admit and confess each other as
divine, real and essentially one. Mind and Life are disclosed in
that illumination as at once figures and instruments of the supreme
Conscious Being by which It extends and houses Itself in material
form and in that form unveils Itself to Its multiple centres of
consciousness. ………………”
“In
the light of this conception we can perceive the possibility of a
divine life for man in the world which will at once justify Science
by disclosing a living sense and intelligible aim for the cosmic and
the terrestrial evolution and realize by the transfiguration of the
human soul into the divine the great ideal dream of all high
religions.
( The Life Divine, pg 32)
Tiers of Reconciliation:
As
the cosmic consciousness holds in its bosom contradictory movements,
it holds both the cosmic self in its poise of activity and poise of
silence. At the individual level, ‘silence’ and ‘activity’ are
opposite movements. At the level of the cosmic consciousness, the
‘silence’ supports the ‘activity’, acts as its base and foundation.
The problem is that as the scientist and the mystic tend to
exaggerate their ‘partial’ understandings, eulogizing either Matter
or Spirit, the spiritual seekers also tends to cling to partial
realizations either harping on the ‘silent’ self or the ‘active
self, and in the process developing different schools of
spirituality that apparently appear to be ‘different’. Thus one
school hails the ‘self’ as silent, inactive, pure, self –existent
(the Silent Brahman) while another school eulogizes the ‘Active
Brahman’. Sri Aurobindo points out that they are two aspects of the
same Reality and each is necessary to the other.
The
process of ‘reconciliation’ is dynamic and does not stop at the
level of cosmic consciousness. It continues at the yet higher poise
of Transcendental Consciousness, The conflict between ‘Matter’ and
‘Spirit’ gets reconciled at the level of Cosmic Consciousness. The
Transcendental Consciousness provides the background of a
reconciliation of even more contradictory assertions (more
contradictory in degree than the contradiction between Matter and
Spirit) - - viz., the contradictory view- points of very great
spiritual realizations (which however great, are yet based on
partial experiences). Sri Aurobindo mentions in this context the
great debate between considering the Reality as a ‘Non- Being’
vis-à-vis ‘Being’.
Is
the ‘Non-Being’ or Zero the primal state and sole constant Reality
relegating the universe and the individual to the mere status of a
secondary phenomenon or an illusion? Actually Sri Aurobindo points
out that terms like ‘Non –Being’, ‘Nihil’ or ‘Zero’ have been
formulated to describe states that are beyond the grasp of our
cognitive faculties. He asserts that if whatever can be ‘Known or
‘experienced’ represents ‘Reality’, whatever is ‘unknowable’ also
represents Reality. Moreover, if Reality, symbolized in the ‘pure
Being’ is the base of all that exists and gets expressed, then
‘Realty’ as Nihil or Non-Being symbolizes the freedom from all terms
of existence and expression. The Supreme Reality is free to support
the world-play as well as free to withdraw support to the
world-play. In its role as a supporter of existence, we invest it
with positive terms like ‘pure Being’. In its role as a withdrawer
of support of the world –play, we invest it with negative terms like
‘Non Being’, ‘Nihil’ or ‘Zero’.
“Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the
free base of all cosmic existence. We give the name of Non-Being to
a contrary affirmation of Its freedom from all cosmic existence, -
freedom, that is to say, from all positive terms of actual existence
which consciousness in the universe can formulate to itself, even
from the most abstract, even from the most transcendent. It does not
deny them as a real expression of Itself, but It denies its
limitation by all expression or any expression whatsoever. The Non
–Being permits the Being, even as the Silence permits the Activity.
By this simultaneous negation and affirmation, not mutually
destructive, but complementary to each other like all contraries,
the simultaneous awareness of conscious Self-being as a reality and
the Unknowable beyond as the same Reality becomes realizable to the
awakened human soul.”
(pg. 35 ,The Life Divine)
Epilogue:
The Individual Self, the
traveller in time, extends into the cosmic consciousness, identities
with the cosmic Self and then progresses further to the
transcendental poise, identifying with the transcendental Self,
beyond time;
“At last the traveller in the
paths of Time
Arrives on the frontiers of eternity.
In the transient symbol of humanity draped,
He feels his substance of undying self
And loses his kinship to mortality.
A beam of the Eternal smites his heart.
His thought stretches into infinitude;
All in him turns to spirit vastnesses.
His soul breaks out to join the Oversoul,
His life is oceaned by that superlife.
……………………………………………….
………………………………………………
Then is revealed in man the overt Divine.
A static Oneness and dynamic Power
Descend in him, the integral Godhead’s seals;
His soul and body take that splendid stamp.
A long dim preparation is man’s life,
A circle of toil and hope and war and peace
Tracked out by Life on Matter’s obscure ground.
In his climb to a peak no feet have ever trod,
He seeks through a penumbra shot with flame
A veiled reality half-known, ever missed,
A search for something or someone never found,
Cult of an ideal never made real here,
An endless spiral of ascent and fall
Until at last is reached the giant point
Through which his Glory shines for whom we were made
And we break into the infinity of God.”
(
Savitri,pg 23-24))
The
term ‘GIANT POINT’ indicates that the Being or Self is not confined
to the individual form but has its universal and transcendental
poises, and that an experiential realization of the multiple poises
of the Being brings the knowledge of ‘Reality”, because the
microcosm is represented in the macrocosm and the macrocosm is
represented in the microcosm.
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