(a project of Mirravision Trust, Financed by Auroshakti Foundation)

A Psychological Approach to Sri Aurobindo's

The Life Divine

The Supreme Truth-Consciousness

Chapter XV of The Life Divine is a further elaboration of the comprehending and apprehending principles of the Supermind initiated in the previous chapter (vide supra, Chapter XIV Part 3). The comprehending principle of the Supermind is that poise which subserves the knowledge of the Absolute as a unity that holds in its bosom the seeds of all that have the potentiality to be manifested. The apprehending principle of the Supermind is that poise which supports the knowledge of the multiplicity without losing the essence of the underlying unity.

Both the comprehending and apprehending principles are equally important operative principles of the Supermind. Because the One is potentially many, the ‘unity’ should permit the ‘diversity’ and the ‘diversity’ should in turn reflect the ‘unity’.

This can only be possible if the Supermind as a creative principle bears the unique characteristic of an ‘ORDERING SELF KNOWLEDGE’ (The Life Divine, pg 143). The Supermind not only ‘creates’ but each creative fiat holds an inbuilt, automatic program so that whatever is destined to be created is invested with a predestined force of execution that not only manifests the creative vision in a world of objectivity but spontaneously aligns it in perfect harmony with other elements in the manifestation.

If we consider that the ONE has the potential of manifesting an INFINITE multiplicity, then it would be rather impractical to conceive that harmony can be established in the manifestation. An infinite potentiality can lead to ‘a play of uncontrolled unbounded chance’, ‘a shifting chaos’ (Ibid, pg 143). The very concept of infinite potentiality denotes a sort of continual extension like a recurring decimal. To establish harmony in the manifestation would sound like a chimera.

A harmony between manifested potentialities in a world of infinite multiplicity needs two considerations:

(a) There must be a ‘law’ of ‘guiding truth and harmonious self-vision’
(b) There must be a field or matrix for the working out of the law.

The LAW is the ‘ordering self-knowledge’- one of the most unique characteristics of the Supermind- it is nothing arbitrary but the ‘expression of a self-nature which is determined by the compelling truth of the real idea that each thing is in its inception. Therefore from the beginning the whole development is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working: it is what it must be at each moment by its own original inherent Truth; it moves to what it must be at the next, still by its own original inherent Truth; it will be at the end that which was contained and intended in its seed’. (Ibid, pg.144)

The field is the matrix provided by the ‘successions in time’ and the ‘divisibility’ in space and a ‘regulated interaction of related things in space to which the secession of time gives the aspect of causality’ (Ibid)

Therefore, the phenomenon of creation needs :

(a) A CREATIVE IDEA

(b) AN EXECUTIVE-FORCE that manifests the creative idea with exactness, precision and in accordance with the previsioned plan,

(c) (A LAW that places the ‘Idea-Force’ in perfect harmony and alignment with the rest of the manifestation (a difficult endeavor as the manifestation is capable of an infinite multiplicity)

(d) A field or matrix for the law to operate, which is provided by successions in Time and divisibility in space.

This is how that which lay concentrated in uncreative self-awareness manifests in creative self-knowledge. This whole phenomenon of creation is executed by the Supermind- the creative principle- The ‘Truth-Consciousness’. It is this principle that is usually referred to when we speak of ‘GOD’. ‘We have to regard therefore this all-containing, all-originating, all-consummating Supermind as the nature of the Divine Being, not indeed in its absolute self-existence, but in its actual action as the Lord and Creator if its own worlds. This is the truth of that which we call God’ (Ibid, pg. 143)

He lived in the mystic space where thought is born

And will is nursed by an ethereal Power

And fed on the white milk of the Eternal’s strengths

Till it grows into the likeness of a god.

(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, pg 28)

Date of Update: 22-Apr-14   

- By Dr. Soumitra Basu