(Clinical
psychologists cannot measure a true ‘inter-rater’ agreement in the
realm of spirituality, which they can easily elicit in materialistic
disciplines!)
It
is therefore not surprising that there have been great spiritual
stalwarts who have described the ‘Brahman’ or ‘Reality’ as a silent
self, inactive, pure, self-existent, self-enjoying and detached from
manifestation. There have been also equally great spiritual
stalwarts who have understood ‘Reality’ or ‘Brahman’ as active,
free, powerful and meaningful in manifestation.
Sri
Aurobindo explains that the ‘passive’ and ‘active’ Brahmans are two
poises of the same Reality and each is necessary to the other. The
passivity or silence supports the activity or dynamism. He writes:
‘Here also harmony and not irreconcilable opposition must be the
illuminative truth. The silent and the active Brahman are not
different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying,
the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two
aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other.
It is out of this silence that the Word expresses that which is
self-hidden in the Silence. It is an eternal passivity which makes
possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine
activity in innumerable cosmic systems. For the becomings of that
activity derive their energies and their illimitable potency of
variation and harmony from the impartial support of the immutable
Being, its consent to this infinite fecundity of its own dynamic
Nature.’
(Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Pg. 32 – 33)
Application in Life
The relation between the ‘silent’
and ‘active’ Brahman or that between ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’ is
something that needs to be established in the individual human
schemata for a harmonious, integrated and healthy life. There is a
wrong notion that ‘dynamism’ alone is an expression of power,
activity and action. Yogic psychology describes dynamism as only one
aspect of power. Power can also be represented along a static
dimension. Moreover, it is this static power that supports and
upholds the dynamic power of outer action. The perfect man can
combine in himself the silence and the activity. It has been
surmised that many of our physical and psychological maladies stem
from an excessive dynamism without a base of static power. In fact
the Type – A Behavior is a unique example where middle-aged
successful executives with great drive, responsibility, heightened
sense of time-urgency and dynamism are more prone to coronary heart
disease. The interesting point is that the classical Type-A
personality is marked by an intense psychological restlessness and
inability to relax. In other words, the explicit dynamism that
characterizes Type-A behavior is not complemented and balanced by an
intrinsically static poise in character and action. Thus the base
of static power has to be established and consolidated in our
consciousness to support the flow of dynamism in an integrated and
healthy life.
(Please refer to the article ‘Time and Health’ in the Downloads
section of this website which deals with the cultivation of an inner
poise as part of personality development: this inner poise permits
the balance between ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’. This article gives in
detail how the inner poise has to be established at different levels
of consciousness; how these different experiences can be integrated;
and how even this endeavor can be initiated in child development and
educational programs as part of personality growth and development.)
Sri
Aurobindo explains:
‘Man, too, becomes perfect only when he has found within himself
that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it
with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and
inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm
within can perceive always welling out from its silence the
perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. … The
Silence does not reject the world; it sustains it. Or rather it
supports with an equal impartiality the activity and the withdrawal
from the activity and approves also the reconciliation by which the
soul remains free and still even while it lends itself to all
action.’
(Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Pg. 33)
Epilogue
Thus, the cultivation of ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’ in a single
individual shifts the focus of psychology to a ‘self-growth’
discipline. The disparity between the poise of silence within and
dynamic power and activity on the surface is the cause of many
psychosomatic maladies. One who has achieved silence, peace and
quietude within can afford to support the dynamic play of power,
energy and action on the surface. A vigorously dynamic individual
will have less chance of disharmony and illness if he is balanced
and stabilized by a poise of silence within.
In
a lighter vein, Sri Aurobindo makes fun of the ‘harmony’ and
‘stability’ generated by the ‘liberated’ seer:
Self
‘He
said, “I am egoless, spiritual, free,”
Then swore because his dinner was not ready.
I asked him why. He said, “It is not me,
But the belly’s hungry god who gets unsteady.”
I asked him why. He said “It is his play.
I am unmoved within, desireless, pure.
I care not what may happen day by day.”
I questioned him, “Are you so very sure?”
He answered, “I can understand your doubt.
But to be free is all. It does not matter
How you may kick and howl and rage and shout,
Making a row over your daily platter.
To be aware of self is liberty.
Self I have got and, having self, am free.’
(Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Pg. 162)
In
this sonnet, Sri Aurobindo views the harmony between ‘silence’ and
‘dynamism’ achieved in the cosmic consciousness by a seer who has
attained ‘liberation’ with a sense of humour. Yet, the humour is
not simple but somewhat sarcastic because the harmony at the level
of the cosmic consciousness is still imperfect, and needs to be
replicated both at a higher level of transcendental consciousness
and at the level of earthly reality. He deliberately uses this
sarcasm because many spiritual seekers seem to be satisfied with
realization at the level of the cosmic consciousness and do not feel
the necessity for further transcendence or return back to the
earthly life. When we read this sonnet we feel that there is
something missing in the very context of ‘liberation’. If we are
searching for a spirituality that integrates earthly life, we are
dissatisfied. If we are searching for an earthly life that supports
spirituality, we are dissatisfied. In fact, the sarcasm in this
sonnet has a heuristic value as it stimulates the reader to question
the time-honoured concept of ‘liberation’. In Sri Aurobindo’s
world-view, liberation per se is not the epitome of spiritual
pursuit. He changed the password of spirituality from ‘liberation’
to ‘transformation’. In a transformed status, the ‘belly’s god’
might not feel the necessity to feel ‘hungry’!
In
fact, this sonnet raises a very important existential issue. We need
to establish the harmony between ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’, ‘passive’
and ‘active’ Brahman if we want to establish perfection in earthly
life and not in a faraway heaven. However, a seer seeking
‘liberation’ of the Self is actually seeking liberation from the
imperfection of earthly life and he need not care for either the
harmony or the disharmony in the world. Besides, the harmony between
‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’ cannot be attained unless one exceeds the
ego-bound personality to come in contact with the cosmic
consciousness. Even then, the realization of cosmic harmony does not
automatically qualify for perfection in earthly life as this sonnet
shows. An individual can of course succeed to replicate the cosmic
harmony between ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’ within oneself but that
does not again suffice to generalize the harmony in the greater
social life. In Sri Aurobindo’s scheme of things, such a harmony can
be generalized if
(a) The harmony between ‘silence’ and ‘dynamism’ is replicated
simultaneously at the individual, cosmic and transcendental levels
of Reality, and
(b) The pursuit of ‘liberation’ is replaced by the urge for
‘transformation’ so that the higher Reality can manifest at the
level of the lower reality.
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