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This
complex of ‘Knowledge-Will’ is considered to be representing the
attribute of the Spirit in metaphysical parlance. It is described in
the 2nd Rig Veda stanza quoted by Sri Aurobindo at the beginning of 1st chapter: “That which is immortal in mortals and possessed of the truth, is a god and established inwardly as an energy working out in our divine powers”.
This Rig Veda
stanza also gives two important seed ideas:
A) It describes
that the creative Knowledge-Will which manifests the evolutionary
movement works through various forms which appear to be graded but
nevertheless each grade contains the truth of the whole evolutionary
movement as a luminous potentiality. Thus the grades of Matter, Life
and Mind in the apparent terrestrial imperfection carry the
potentialities of the superlatives conceived and experienced by
seers and rishis ( we will discuss afterwards how the lower
evolutionary planes of Matter, Life and Mind contain the essence of
the higher experiential worlds of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss or
Sat-Chit-Ananda)
b) The
potentialities of the highest movements of the indwelling Spirit can
be invoked so as to manifest in the earthly life of imperfection and
perversity. This is the raison-de-atre of The Human Aspiration.
The 2nd
and 3rd chapters of The Life Divine have a common
heading-- The Two Negations. Chapter II describes the materialist
perspective while chapter III deals with the ascetic position.
Chapter II begins
with a quotation from Taittiriya Upanishad. It is a stanza that
acknowledges the Reality of Matter and yet points out the Reality of
the non-material forms of creation. If Matter reflected the Supreme
Reality, other forms of the Spirit were equally Real: if ‘Matter’
was Reality, ‘Energy’ was also Reality. The term ‘Energy’ in this
Upanishadic sloka does not only denote the mechanical energy
sustaining the material universe but also the subtle energies
supporting the non-material forms in creation.
The Materialist
Denial
An evolution in
Consciousness (what Sri Aurobindo envisages) can only be meaningful
if spirituality blossoms in material life, if there is an unhindered
manifestation of the Spirit (the ‘Omega’) in the bosom of ‘inert’
Matter (the ‘Alpha’).
The
human intellect finds it difficult to reconcile ‘Matter’ and
‘Spirit’. It either eulogizes ‘Matter’ by denying the existence of
the ‘Spirit’, dismissing it as an illusion of imagination (a reason
why Sri Aurobindo has named this chapter as ‘The Materialist
Denial’) or else it upholds ‘Spirit’ by refusing to acknowledge
‘Matter’, condescendingly dismissing it as an illusion of the senses
(Sri Aurobindo has named the next chapter as ‘The Refusal of the
Ascetic’). This ‘exclusive’ preoccupation of the human intellect has
led to momentous social consequences:
‘In India, if the result has been a
great heaping up of the treasures of the Spirit, - or of some of
them, - it has also been a great bankruptcy of Life; in Europe, the
fullness of riches and the triumphant mastery of this world’s powers
and possessions have progressed towards an equal bankruptcy in the
things of the Spirit. Nor has the intellect, which sought the
solution of all problems in the one term of Matter, found
satisfaction in the answer that it has received.’ (The Life Divine,
Pg. 13)
The Time–Spirit
therefore presses for a new integration that will have a fulfilling
effect both in the individual and the race.
In the subsequent
chapters of the Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo will present the
integration of ‘Spirit’ and ‘Matter’ that will proceed through
complex and graded pathways. But before that, he wants us to examine
‘Matter’ and ‘Spirit’ in an objective way and to acknowledge the
place of ‘materialism’ in the human quest.
One great problem
of ‘materialism’ is its reliance on ‘sensory perception’ and
‘reason’ not necessarily because of their limitations (which are
present and bona fide and will be discussed later) but because the
human being has also faculties that transcend ‘senses’ and also can
be infra-rational or supra-rational. In fact ‘Extra Sensory
Perception’, ‘Near Death Experiences’ and ‘Out of Body Experiences’
are phenomena that contemporary consciousness researchers find
difficult to ignore. Likewise, the logical, rational man can also be
subject to taboos, superstitions, prejudices or be prey to
personality attributes like anger, jealousy, lust, and greed! Or
else, a pragmatic scientist can also suddenly be swayed by a piece
of ethereal music. A strain of Beethoven’s composition can suddenly
uplift a person who was otherwise engaged in share market
speculations and lead him to wonder which of the two was a more
fulfilling experience! The end result of all these phenomena is that
even a ‘materialistic’ person trained to think logically, can get
influenced by non-materialistic factors, albeit unwillingly. Such a
‘mixed functioning’ of the intellect can cause confusion rather than
clarification to a person who is pursuing knowledge, either in the
domain of science or spirituality.
Nevertheless, materialism has done a great service to humanity. Sri
Aurobindo opines that if the ‘Materialistic’ base of humanity was
not developed to its fullest potential, it could not lead to newer
levels of knowledge. In fact, a ‘higher than materialistic
knowledge’ can only be safely entered when ‘the intellect has
been severely trained to a clear austerity; seized on by the unripe
minds, it lends itself to the most perilous distortions and
misleading imaginations and actually in the past encrusted a real
nucleus of truth with such an accretion of perverting superstitions
and irrationalising dogmas that all advance in true knowledge was
rendered impossible.’ (The Life Divine, Pg. 15) This is how
death rituals became a lip-service instead of a living experience.
This is also why an original Vedic seed-idea with a different
connotation degenerated into the perverted caste-system of India as
it is today. (Ref: ‘The Caste System of India – An Aurobindonian
Perspective’: Get it from our Downloads Section). Sri Aurobindo adds
‘It became necessary for a time to make a clean sweep at once of
the truth and its disguise in order that the road might be clear for
a new departure and a surer advance. The rationalistic tendency of
Materialism has done mankind this great service.’(The Life Divine,
Pg. 15). Sri Aurobindo also cautions that when the intellect has
entered a higher domain of knowledge, it should not lose the
materialistic base and a constant correction of errors needs a
periodic return ‘to the
restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical
world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of
Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge’. (vide supra)
The Greatest Asset of Materialism
Sri Aurobindo
points out that the greatest asset of materialism is that it is
permeated by the spirit of Agnosticism – the premise that we know
nothing of Reality beyond material phenomena! Why? Because as man
proceeds to expand his repertoire of knowledge, he finds that his
known materialistic formulas become insufficient after a certain
point. That is why the scientist has to constantly deconstruct old
hypotheses and continuously reconstruct new ones to understand the
same phenomena! ‘A premise so arbitrary pronounces on itself its
own sentence of insufficiency’ (The Life Divine, Pg. 14) Sri
Aurobindo points out that as expanding experience compels us to
acknowledge knowable realities beyond rigid mechanical ranges, the
premise of Agnosticism begins to give away. Nevertheless, he
cautions that we should not condemn the tools of materialism.
‘Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that
atheism has done for the Divine and admire the services that
Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of
knowledge. In our world error is continually the hand-maid and
pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles
because of its limitations; often it is truth that wears a disguise
in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal.’ (The Life Divine,
Pg. 16)
(T.H.Huxley coined
the term ‘agnostic’ as opposed to Gnostic in 1869 to designate one
who repudiated traditional Judeo-Christian Theism but was not a
doctrinaire Atheist. Agnosticism lives open the question whether
there is a God whereas atheism is a positive denial of God. In
current parlance agnosticism favours suspension of judgment on
ultimate questions due to insufficient evidence. Sri Aurobindo does
not see any wrong in this attitude because usually we proceed to
understand Reality through arbitrary premises, partial truths and
idiosyncratic preferences. In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo will
construct an Integral view of Reality where the term ‘Gnostic’ will
find a special place. )
An Universal Agnosticism
In fact, Sri
Aurobindo also comments that ‘A certain kind of Agnosticism is
the final truth of all knowledge’ (vide supra). Whatever path we
follow, the path of science or the path of spirituality – the
universe appears as a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable
Reality that translates into different sets of value to different
mindsets. To the material scientist, it presents as physical values;
to the psychologist it presents as vital and sensational values; to
the philosopher as intellectual values and to the mystic as
spiritual values. Even here, there can be a problem because the
scientist can exaggerate physical values out of proportion and the
mystic can exaggerate spiritual values out of proportion. Sri
Aurobindo prefers a differential yet experiential and integral
approach where each thing is put in its proper place and whatever is
not knowable by thought can be attained by a supreme effort of
consciousness. Throughout the Life Divine, He will be developing
this consciousness approach as a theory, a construct and a Yoga.
Breaking Barriers
Sri Aurobindo also
makes an interesting observation that certain conclusions of
materialistic science have a similarity with certain conclusions of
metaphysical pursuits. The Vedas and Upanishads in India have an
important tradition of Monism – a doctrine that there exists only a
Single Reality. The diversity we see in creation is only a
manifestation of a Single Reality – a variegated manifestation
necessary for the play of the cosmic drama which otherwise would be
lackluster, boring and monotonous.
Surprisingly,
Mechanistic Science also arrives at some sort of monism – a monism
of matter. Everything is reduced into the same basic terms of
nuclear particles or chromosomal structures. The diversity in
creation is just a play of varying combinations of nuclear particles
or chromosomes:
Electron
The electron on
which forms and worlds are built,
Leaped into being, a particle of God.
A spark from the eternal Energy split,
It is the Infinite’s blind minute abode.
In that small flaming chariot Shiva rides.
The One devised innumerably to be;
His oneness in invisible forms he rides,
Time’s tiny temples to eternity.
Atom and molecule in their unseen plan
Buttress an edifice of strange oneness,
Crystal and plant, insect and beast and man, –
Man on whom the World-Unity shall seize,
Widening his soul-spark to an epiphany
Of the timeless vastness of Infinity.
* Collected Poems,
Sri Aurobindo: Pg. 141
Science has
already changed its conception of matter – to it, Matter and Energy
are interconvertible. The Vedic Seers also considered matter to be a
conceptual form of substance – so much so that a point can be
reached where only an arbitrary distinction in thought divides form
of substance from form of energy. In fact, to the spiritual
tradition of India, ‘Mind’, ‘Life’ and ‘Matter’ are just different
formulations of the same Energy. If so, then this ‘Energy’ is not a
brute mechanical force that works through accident or chance but a
Cosmic WILL in action – a consciousness applying itself to a work
and a result.
‘What is that work
and result, if not a self-involution of consciousness in form and a
self-evolution out of form so as to actualise some mighty
possibility in the universe which it has created? And what is its
will in Man if not a will to unending Life, to unbounded knowledge,
to unfettered Power?’ (The Life Divine, Pg. 19)
In fact, as time
advances, Materialistic Science itself moves towards subtler
insights, a journey that got consolidated with Einstein. Sri
Aurobindo in 1914 wrote how the highest achievements of practical
science were those which tended to simplify and reduce to the
vanishing-point the machinery by which the greatest efforts are
produced. He gave the example of wireless telegraphy where the
sensible physical means of transmission were only preserved at
points of impulsion and reception. No doubt, today’s Mobile phone is
a subtler extension of the same phenomenon. But Sri Aurobindo
progresses further – he visualizes a technology of consciousness
that can enable the mind to directly seize physical energy and speed
it accurately upon its errand. For this to happen, the spiritual and
mechanistic paradigms have to be really linked. This is what an
evolution of consciousness can lead to:
This is our
deepest need to join once more
What now is parted, opposite and twain,
Remote in sovereign spheres that never meet
Or fronting like far poles of Night and Day.
We must feel the immense lacuna we have made,
Re-wed the closed finite’s lonely consonant
With the open vowels of Infinity,
A hyphen must connect Matter and Mind,
The narrow isthmus of the ascending soul:
We must renew the secret bond in things,
Our hearts recall the lost divine Idea,
Reconstitute the perfect word, unite
The Alpha and the Omega in one sound:
Then shall the Spirit and Nature be at one.
Two are the ends of the mysterious plan.
(Savitri, Sri
Aurobindo: Pg. 56-57) |
