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03. ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம் - லைப் டிவைன்

ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம்

லைப் டிவைன்

(சென்ற இதழின் தொடர்ச்சி....)

கர்மயோகி

XIX. Life

173/1: Now we see what Mind is. We see its divine origin. Its divine origin is how it is related to the Truth-Consciousness. Our human existence is of three lower principles. Mind is the highest of the three. It is a special action of the divine consciousness. Or, it is the final strand of its whole creative action. The Purusha has different forms and forces of himself. Mind enables the Purusha to hold these relations apart from each other. Mind creates phenomenal differences. The individual soul takes this appearance to be radical divisions. It is so because the individual soul has fallen from the Truth-Consciousness. This is the original perversion. It is the parent of all the resultant perversions. To us these perversions are dualities, contraries, oppositions. It is proper to the life of the Soul in the Ignorance. Mind need not be separated from Supermind. Then, what is perversion to us is the various workings of the universal Truth. Once Mind separates from the Supermind this sense of broad unity is lost. Sense of difference precipitates itself as perversion.

173/2: Mind thus appears as a creative cosmic agency. Normally we do not understand Mind like this. Our mentality has a different impression. To us Mind is a perceptive organ. It perceives things already created by the Force. The Force creates working in Matter.So, to us Mind is a creator. We allow a secondary creation to Mind. We assume Mind now combines forms already developed by Matter. We are getting new knowledge through Science. Science finds subconscious Mind in Matter. It sees it in the Force. This is not new knowledge for us, but it is our old knowledge lost. Now it is not a discovery, but a rediscovery. So, the Mind is responsible for its own emergence. First it emerges as forms of life. Then it is in the forms of mind itself. First it emerges in the nervous consciousness of plant-life and the primitive animal. Secondly it shows in the evolved animal and man. Mentality is ever-developing there. Already we saw Matter is only substance form of Force. Now we shall discover that material Force is only energy-form of Mind. Material force is subconscious operation of will. Will works in us in our light. In truth, it is no more than a half-light. The material Force works. It works in darkness. We see it as darkness, not the materialist. It is the darkness of unintelligence to us. To the materialist it is the rightful field. Perhaps he seeks light there. In reality and in essence it is the darkness. Materialist thought has always felt that it is its rightful field. Spiritual knowledge works from the summit. What the materialist now discovered, Spirit has discovered long ago. Therefore we can say as follows. Prakriti has created this material world. Prakriti is the executive Nature of a Force. This Force is manifested by a subconscious Mind. Or, we can call it Intelligence.

174/3: Mind is no original entity nor is it independent. Now we have seen this. It is only the final operation of Truth-Consciousness. Truth-Consciousness is Supermind. So wherever Mind is there should be Supermind. Again Supermind is Truth-Consciousness. Therefore Supermind is the real creative agency of the universal Existence. Mind can sometimes be separated from its source. Still that larger movement is always there in the workings of Mind. It forces them to preserve the right relations. It evolves from them the inevitable results they bear in themselves. It compels them to produce the right tree from the right seed. Thus Mind compels even the operation of brute Matter. Matter is inert. It is a darkened material force. The compulsion results in a world of Law, in a world of order. Without Mind it would be a clashing chaos. Obviously this order can be only a relative one. Even the relation must be relative. It is not the supreme order and the supreme right. That would be so, if Mind were not separated from Supermind. It is an arrangement. It is an order to the results right and proper to the action of Mind. It is a dividing Mind. Its creation is of separative oppositions. It is the dual contrary sides of one Truth. The Divine Consciousness conceived of the dual representation of itself. It threw into operation the idea of the divided representation of itself. It deduces from it in real-idea. And educes practically from it in substance of life. It does so by the governing action of the whole Truth-Consciousness behind it. The varying relation has its own inferior truth. It is inevitable. There it gets by deduction and its reverse. This is the nature of Law or Truth in the world. It is the first working. It brings out that which is contained in being. It is implied in the essence. It is the nature of the thing itself. It is latent in the self-being and self-law, swabhava, swadharma. It is seen by the divine knowledge. It is there in one of the formulas of the Upanishad. It contains a world of knowledge in a few words. It is the Self-existent, the seer and thinker. It becomes everywhere. It has arranged in Himself all things rightly from years eternal. It does so according to the truth of which they are.

175/4: We live in a triple world of Mind-Life-Body. It is triple only in the actual accomplishment of the evolution. This is the consequence. Life is involved in Matter. It has emerged in the form of thinking. It is mentally conscious life. Where Mind is there Supermind is. It is so with Life and Matter. Supermind is the origin of the three. It is also their ruler. Therefore Supermind also must emerge. We seek for intelligence at the root of the world. Intelligence is the highest principle we are aware of. To us, it seems Intelligence governs. It explains all our actions and creation. Therefore if there is a consciousness at all in the universe, it must be Intelligence. Intelligence is a mental consciousness. Intelligence only perceives, reflects and uses. It does so within the measure of its capacity the work of a Truth of being. It is superior to itself. There is a power behind. It must be another superior form of consciousness. It is proper to the Truth. Therefore we have to mend our conceptions. We must not affirm sub-conscious Mind or Intelligence but an involved Supermind. It puts Mind in front of it. It is the immediately active form of its knowledge-will. It is sub-conscious in Force. It uses the material Force or Will. It is subconscious in substance of being. It is its executive Nature or Prakriti. It has created this material world.

175/5: It is Mind that we call life here. Mind is manifested in a specialisation of Force. What then is Life? What is its relation to Supermind? Supermind is the supreme trinity of Sachchidananda. It is active in creation by means of the Real-Idea, or Truth-Consciousness. From what principle in the trinity does it take its birth? By what necessity does it come into being? Is it divine or undivine? Is it Truth or illusion? Life is an evil, rings down the centuries the ancient cry. It is a delusion, a delirium, insanity. We have to flee from it and seek the repose of eternal being. If this is true, why is it so? Why has the Eternal wantonly inflicted this evil? Is it not what HE brought on Himself? Is it not what He brought upon His creatures? Is it by the all-deluding Maya? Or, is it some divine principle? Or, what is it that expresses itself? Is there an eternal being and is His power to express thus? In that case, that being should have thrown itself into Time and Space. This universe is a constant outburst of the million and million forms of life. They people the countless worlds of this universe.

176/6: We can study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth. Its basis is Matter. We observe that essentially it is one form of cosmic Energy. It is a dynamic movement or current of it. It is positive or negative. It is a constant act or play of the Force. It builds up Forms. It energises them by a continual stream of stimulation. It maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration. It does so by renewal of substance. To us life and death are opposite. It is natural to us. This would tend to show that is an error of our mentality. It is one of those false oppositions. (It is false to the inner truth. It is valid to the surface practical experience). It is deceived by appearance. It is constantly bringing this error to the universal unity. Death has no reality. Only that it is a process of life. Death is merely a rapid disintegration of life. It is subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Body dies. Even there there is no cessation of life. Only the material of one form of life is broken up. It serves as material for other forms of life. The law of Nature is uniform. There is in the bodily form a mental energy. It is psychic energy. That also is not destroyed. It only breaks out of one form to assume another. It is by some metempsychosis. It is a new ensouling of body. All renews itself, nothing perishes.

176/7: We may as well say that there is an all pervading Life. It can be a dynamic energy. (This is the material aspect. It is only its outermost movement.) It creates all these forms of physical universe. It is Life imperishable and eternal. It would go on existing, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished. It is capable of producing a new universe in its place. Unless it is held back, it is capable of continuing to create. It can be held back only by a higher power in a state of repose. In that case Life is a Force that builds forms in the world. It maintains them as well as destroys them. It is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth. It is the same in the plants and animals. The animals support the existence of plants. They devour the life-force of the plant or each other. All existence here is a universal Life. It takes the form of Matter. It hides life-process in the physical process. It emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality. Still, it would be the same creative Life principle.

177/8: Well, this not what we mean by life. We mean a particular result of universal life-force with which we are familiar. It manifests only in the animal and the plant. But it is not in the metal, the stone, and the gas. It operates in the animal cell, but not in the pure physical atom. Therefore, we must convince ourselves of the difference in the play of this Force in life and not-life. Then we can be sure of our ground. In what does this precise difference lie, is the question. We call inanimate things not-life. There is a difference in the play of this Force in both cases. We must discover that. On earth there are three realms of the play of Force. They are the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom and the material void. It is an old classification. We belong to the animal kingdom. There is life in us. There is life in the plant. How do they differ? What, then, is the further difference? It is between life and not-life. In the old phraseology it is the metal and mineral. Now Science has discovered the new chemical kingdom.

177/9: To us life means animal life. That is what we speak of. It moves, breathes, eats, feels and desires. We speak of the life of plants. It is almost a metaphor, rather than a reality. There is life in the plant. But it is regarded as purely a material process. It is not considered as a biological phenomenon. We associate life with breathing. We call it breath of life. Every language said it. The formula is true if we change our conception. That conception is of Breath of Life. There is spontaneous motion, locomotion, breathing, eating. They are only process of life, not life itself. They are the means of stimulating energy. It is done constantly. It is our vitality. There is the process of disintegration and renewal. By them, it supports our substantial existence. There are the processes of our vitality. They can be maintained by other ways. Our respiration is not the only process. Nor our means of sustenance. Breathing and the beating of the heart are deemed essential to life. There are other conditions too. They can be temporarily suspended. Still life can remain in the body. It can be in full consciousness. It is a proven fact. New evidence of phenomena emerges. We deny conscious reaction to the plant. It has a physical life. It is identical to our life. It is also essentially organised like our life. It is different in the apparent organisation. Suppose it is proven true. Then we have to cleanly sweep away our conceptions. They are old and facile as well as false. We must get beyond the symptoms. They are externalities. We must go to the root of the matter.

178/10: There are recent discoveries. Their conclusions may be accepted. It must throw intense light on the problem of Life in Matter. A great Indian scientist has pointed attention to the response to stimulus. It is an infallible sign of the existence of life. It is especially a phenomenon of the plant life. His data illumines it. It illustrates in all its subtle functionings. We must not forget it is an essential point. It is a proof of vitality. Response to stimulus is that proof. It affirms both the positive and negative states of life. The negative state is death. Both have been affirmed by him. It is done in metals as well as plants. There are instruments of right nature. It can be of sufficient delicacy. They may be invented. There are points of similarity between plant and metal. They too can be discovered by those instruments. It may not be in the same abundance. It may not show the character of organisation of life. We can see they are identical. It may not prove to be so. It might mean the same organisation is absent. Or, it may show any organisation is absent. But, the beginnings of vitality could still be there. But life exists in the metal. It may be rudimentary in its symptoms. It must be admitted at present. It may be involved or elementary. It may be elemental in the earth. Or they may be in other material existences. They may be akin to the metal. We can pursue our inquiry further. We are not obliged to stop short. Normally we do so where our immediate means of investigations fail us. We have an unvarying experience of Nature. It says that investigations thus pursued will in the end prove to us that there is no break. There is no rigid line of demarcation between the earth and the metal. Or, is it there between the metal and the plant. We may pursue the synthesis further. There is none between the elements and atoms. They constitute the metal or earth. The metal or earth constitutes them. This is a graded existence. Each step prepares the next. They hold in itself what appears in that which follows it. Life is everywhere. It is secret or manifest, organised or elemental, involved or evolved. It is all pervading, imperishable. Only its forms and organisings differ.

179/11: Modern Science proves the physical response to stimulus. It is only an outward sign of life. They are similar to breathing or locomotion in us. An exceptional stimulus was applied by the experimenter. There were vivid responses. It at once recognises the vitality in the object. They are the indices of vitality. The plant lives in an environment of stimulation. They exist in a mass. For the plant, it is a constant response. It is a constantly maintained force in it. It is capable of responding to the force. The force is from the surroundings. It is an application of that force. They say, those experiments are destructive. They destroy the very vital force. It is so with the plant or any other living organism. A stimulus is an energised force. It is applied to the plant. It is a force of a dynamic movement. It is of sensitive vibration. They answer to the shock. There is a vibrant reception and a reply. Also, there is a will to grow and be. It indicates the submental. It is a vital-physical organisation. It is a consciousness-force hidden in the form of being. There is a constant dynamic energy movement in the universe. It takes various material forms. It is more or less subtle or gross. It is in each physical body or object. It is in plant or animal or metal. It is the same dynamic force. It is stored and active. That is the only fact. There is an interchange between these two. It results in a phenomenon. To us it is life. Or, at least we associate it with life. It is the action of Life-Energy. We recognise that as such. It is so energised by the Life-Force. There are three versions of one World-Force. They are Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy.

180/12: A form may be dead, not its force. The force exists in potential. Maybe its familiar operations of vitality are suspended. Maybe they are about to be ended. The dead can be revived. Of course, it is possible within certain limits. The habitual operations can be renewed. The circulation of active energy can be restored. By this we understand what we call life was still there in the body. It was latent i.e. not active in its usual habits. They are its ordinary physical functioning. They are its nervous play and response. They are habits in the animal of conscious mental response. It is difficult to suppose that there is a distinct entity called life. It has gone entirely out of the body. It gets into it again whenever it feels like. It happens when somebody is stimulating the form. (The question is how, since there is nothing to connect it with the body.) Catalepsy is an instance. The outward physical signs are suspended. The operations of life are suspended. But the mentality is there. It is self-possessed and conscious. It is unable to compel the usual physical responses. It is not a fact that the man is physically dead but mentally alive. It is not that life has gone out of the body while mind still inhabits it. What has happened is the ordinary physical functionings are suspended. The mind is still active.

180/13: There are certain forms of trance. Here the physical functionings as well as the outward mental are suspended. They resume operations later. In some cases it is by external stimulation. A spontaneous return to activity from within is movement. The surface mind-force has been withdrawn into subconscious mind. The surface life-force has withdrawn into sub-active life. By this the whole man can lapse into the subconscious existence. Or, he has withdrawn his outer life into the subconscious. At the same time his inner life has been lifted into the superconscient. Here we have a main point. It is the Force has indeed suspended its outer operations. It is the Force that maintains dynamic energy of life in the body. Still, it informs the organised substance. Beyond a point, it is no longer possible to restore the suspended activities. A lesion can create that obstacle. That damage makes it useless. Or it becomes incapable of the habitual functionings. It can also happen otherwise. It is the Force that renews the life-action. That Force can become inert to the pressure of the environing forces. It is a mass of stimulation. The Force usually keeps up a constant interchange with it. It now becomes incapable of it. Even then there is Life in the body. But, it is a life that is busy only with the process of disintegration. It disintegrates the formed substance. That enables them to escape its elements. Thus it constitutes with them new forms. There is a Will in the universal force. It holds the form together. Now, it withdraws from constitution. Instead it supports a process of dispersion. Not till then is there the real death of the body.

181/14: The universe has a Force. It has a dynamic play. Life is that play. In it is mental consciousness. There is nervous vitality too. They are in life in some form. They are at least there in their principles. They are always inherent. Therefore they appear in our world. They organise themselves in the form of Matter. This Force has a life-play. It manifests itself as an interchange. It is an interchange of stimulation and response. It is stimulation between different forms. They are built up by it. There it keeps up its constant dynamic pulsation. It does so with the breath and energy of the common Force. Each form feeds upon that. It nourishes itself with it by various means. It does so indirectly or directly. It does it by taking in other forms. Energy is stored in these forms. It is stored by absorbing the dynamic discharge. It receives the discharge from outside. All this is play of Life. Its organisation is sufficient to it at places. There it is easily recognised by us. Thus we perceive its more outward movements. They are complex in character. It partakes of the nervous type of vital energy. It belongs to our own organisation. In the plant the obvious phenomena of life are there. Therefore we readily admit life in the plant. We can show it has a vital system. And it is not very different from our own. They manifest symptoms of nervosity. Then it becomes still easier for us to accept life in the plant. (We are unwilling to recognise in the metal and the earth. We do not see it in the chemical atom. Here it is not apparent. It can certainly be detected with difficulty.)

182/15: This is a distinction, not a difference. It can be elevated into an essential difference. Is it justified? There is life in us. There is life in the plant. What then is the difference? We do see they differ. We possess a power of locomotion. It has nothing to do with the essence of vitality. We also have a conscious sensation. It is not yet developed in the plant. Our nerves respond. It is attended with the mental response of conscious sensation. It is largely so. It is not always like that. They have a value to the mind. They also have a value to the nervous system. The body is agitated by the nervous action. It would seem that in the plant there are symptoms of nervous sensation. We feel pleasure and pain. We are awake or asleep. Dullness, fatigue and exhilaration are there in us. There are symptoms of nervous sensation. The body is inwardly agitated by nervous sensation in action. Mentally conscious sensation is different. We do not see that in the plant. There is no sign of its actual presence. Sensation is a form of consciousness. It may be mental or vital. But sensation is sensation. A sensitive plant shrinks. It shrinks from a contact. It appears to be nervously affected. Something in it dislikes the contact. It tries to draw away from it. In a word, it is subconscious sensation. It is in the plant. There are subconscious operations in us. It is of the same kind. There are subconscious perceptions and sensations. It can be brought to the surface. It is possible for the human system. It can be done long after it occurred. It might have ceased to affect the nervous system. The sub-conscious mentality is vaster in us. It is vaster than the conscious mentality. There is a mass of evidence of it. It is irrefutable. And it is now established. It is ever-increasing. It is a fact that the plant is not superficially vigilant in mind. It can awaken to the valuation of its subconscious sensation. It makes no difference. We want to identify the phenomenon. It is not essential to that. There is a more rudimentary life operation. It is of the subconscious sense-mind. It is in the metal. Its existence is quite a possibility. There is no bodily agitation in the metal. It corresponds to the nervous system. It is true that bodily agitation is absent. It makes no essential difference. The presence of vitality does not require it. Bodily locomotion is absent in the plant. It does not mean the plant has no vitality. The case of the metal is analogous to it.

183/16: The conscious becomes subconscious. The subconscious too becomes conscious. What actually happens in these occasions? There is a real difference. It lies in the absorption of the conscious energy. A part of its work does it. It is a more or less exclusive concentration. There are certain forms of concentration. We call them mentality. Here Prajnana ceases to act consciously. Prajnana is apprehensive consciousness. Yet the works of the body go on unnoticed. The work of the nerves and the sense-mind too go on. Still it is perfect and constant. It has thus become subconscious. Only in one activity is the mind luminously active. Or, it may be a chain of activities. While Sri Aurobindo writes, it is a physical activity. It is a physical act of writing. It is largely done by the subconscious mind. Sometimes, it is entire. The body makes some nervous movements. It is an unconscious movement. The mind is awake to the thought. Mind is occupied by the thought. The whole man may sink into the subconscious. Yet habitual movements may continue. They imply the action of the mind. It occurs in many types of sleep. Or man may rise into the superconscient. Yet, he may be active. What is thus active in him is the subliminal mind in the body. It happens in certain phenomena of samadhi. It is yogic trance. There is a difference between the plant sensation and our sensation. There is the conscious Force in the universe. It is manifesting itself there. It is asleep in Matter. In the plant it is not fully emerged from sleep. Its source of work is the superconscient knowledge. We experience the worker Force. It is absorbed in Matter. The absorption divides the worker Force from its source. And therefore it is to be done subconsciously. Really it must be done consciously. It emerges from its absorption in man. Here it begins to wake. Still, it is indirect. Its waking to its knowledge-self is indirect. In both cases it does exactly the same thing. But, it is done in a different way. It is done with a different value. In terms of consciousness they are thus different.

183/17: In the very atom there is something. It becomes in us a will, a desire. It is possible for us to conceive this now. There is an attraction and repulsion in us. It is liking and disliking. Though they are phenomenally different, essentially they are the same. We call it subconscient and inconscient. That is evident everywhere in Nature. This is the essence of will and desire. This is not yet sufficiently envisaged. They are expressive of the subconscient. It is associated with it. We can even say it is inconscient. It is an involved sense and intelligence. They are equally pervasive. They are present in every atom. Necessarily they are present in everything made up of atom. They are present in the atom because they are present in the Force. That builds up the constitution of atom. That Force is fundamentally Chit-Tapas, Chit-Shakti of the Vedanta. It is Consciousness-force. It is inherent conscious force of the conscious-being. It manifests itself as nervous energy. It is full of submental sensation in the plant. It is desire sense and desire will in the primary animal forms. It is self conscious sense and forms in the developing animal. It is mental will and knowledge in man. It tops all the rest. Life is a scale of universal Energy. It manages the transition from inconscience to conscience. It is intermediate power. It is latent in Matter submerged. It is delivered by its own force into submental being. It is delivered finally by the emergence of mind. It emerges into the full possibility of its dynamis.

184/18: There are many considerations. Outside them there is a logical necessity. The above conclusion imposes itself as such - a logical necessity. It is evident even in the surface process. There the force emerges in the light. It is the light of the evolutionary theme. It is self-evident that Life in the plant and animal are the same. In the plant it is otherwise organised than in the animal. Yet, it is the same power. It is marked by birth and growth and death. It has several other characteristics. Propagation by the seed, death by decay or malady or violence are some. It maintains by indrawing the nourishing elements from without. Life depends on light and heat. It is capable of productiveness and stability. It has the alternating states of sleep and waking. Its dynamism is capable of energy and depression. It passes from infancy to maturity and age. Also the plant contains the essence of force of life. Therefore, it is the natural food for the animals. The animal exists on plant life and its force. It has a nervous system and reaction to stimuli. We may concede it. Then, it is a beginning of purely vital sensations. Or it is an undercurrent or submental sensation. Then the identity becomes closer. Still, it is a stage of life evolution. It is an intermediate stage. It is between animal existence and “inanimate” Matter. Is Life a force evolving out of Matter? Does the evolution culminate in Mind? If so, this is exactly what is to be expected. It may be that. Then we are bound to suppose something. It is that Life is already there submerged in Matter. It is latent in the material subconsciousness or inconscience. Where else can it emerge from? Evolution presupposes involution. It is true of evolution of Life in Matter. Of course, we may suppose a new creation. It would be magical, unaccountable. Then, it should have been introduced into Nature. Then, it must be a creation out of nothing. Or, it must be a result of material operation. It may not be accounted for by anything in the operation themselves. No element of kindred nature explains it. Then conceivably, it may be a descent from above. It can be from some supraphysical plane. It can be above the material universe. We can dismiss the two first suppositions. We do so as they are arbitrary. Their conception is arbitrary. The last explanation is possible. It is conceivable. In the occult view of things, it is true. There is a pressure from some plane above the material one. It has assigned the emergence of life here. But this does not exclude the origin of life from Matter itself. In that case, it would be a primary and necessary movement. The Life-world may exist. The Life-plane too may exist above the material plane. It does not follow that Life has to emerge out of matter. The Life plane may exist as a formative stage. It may be a stage in the descent of Being through several grades or powers of itself. It may descend into the inconscience. As a result, there can be an involution of itself. It will have all the powers of Matter. They would evolve and emerge later. The signs of submerged life may or may not be discoverable. They may be unorganised or rudimentary. They may be in material things. Or there are no signs. It may be so as the involved life will be in a full sleep. It is not a question of capital importance. The material Energy aggregates. It forms and disaggregates. Still it is the same power in another grade of itself. It is of that Life-Energy which expresses itself in birth, growth and death. It just does the works of Intelligence in a somnambulist subconscience. It betrays itself as the same power. In another grade, it attains the status of Mind. Its very character shows that it contains in itself. It may not be in its characteristic organisation or process. They contain the yet undelivered process of Mind and Life.

186/19: Life is the same everywhere. It is so from atom to man. The atom contains the subconscious stuff. It contains the movement of being. Both are released into consciousness in the animal. Plant life is in a midway stage in the evolution. Life is a universal operation of Conscious-Force. It acts subconsciously on and in Matter. It is the operation that does all. It creates, maintains, destroys and re-creates forms and bodies. It attempts by play of nervous-force. It is the current of interchange of stimulating energy. It awakens conscious sensation in these bodies. In this operation there are three stages. The sleep of Matter is the lowest. The vibration is there. It is entirely sub-conscious. It seems wholly mechanical. A response that is still submental is the middle stage. It is capable of a response there. It is on the verge of consciousness. Conscious mentality is the highest. It is life that develops this conscious mentality. It is in the form of a sensation. It is mentally perceptive. This is a transition. It becomes a basis for development. It is the development of sense-mind and intelligence. It is in the middle stage we catch the idea of Life. Life is distinguished from Matter and Mind. But in reality it is the same in all stages. It is always a middle term between Mind and Matter. It is constituent of Matter. It is instinct with Mind. It is an operation of Conscious-Force. It is not the mere formation of substance. Nor is it the operation of mind. Substance and form are its objects of apprehension. It is rather an energising of conscious-Being. It is a cause and support of the formation of substance. It is an intermediate stage. It is a stage of source and support. Conscious mental apprehension is thus supported. Life liberates into sensitive action. It does so as this intermediate energising of conscious being. Along with the sensitive action there is reaction. It is a form of the creative force of existence. It was working subconsciously or inconsciently. It is absorbed in its own substance. It supports and liberates into action. It does so the apprehensive consciousness of existence. It is called mind. It gives it a dynamic instrumentation. It can work on its own forms. It can work on forms of life and matter also. It connects as a middle term between them. It is the mutual commerce of the two — mind and matter. This is a means of commerce. Life’s currents are continual. It is pulsating nerve-energy. It carries the force of the form as a sensation. It modifies and brings back the force of Mind as will. It modifies Matter. It is this nerve-energy we call Life. It is Prana. It is the Life-force of the Indian system. But nerve-energy is only the form it takes in the animal being. The same Pranic energy is present in all forms. It goes down to the atom. Everywhere it is the same in essence. Everywhere it is the same operation of the Conscious-Force. This Force supports and modifies the substantial existence of its own forms. This is a Force with sense and mind. It is secretly active. But, at first, it is involved in the form. It prepares to emerge. Finally it emerges from its involution. This is the whole significance of Life. It is omnipresent. It has manifested and inhabits the material universe.

Chapter XIX : Life

173/1: Mind that is divine in origin enables the Purusha to hold apart its own different forms. These forms that are really the various workings of the universal Truth, appear as contrary dualities to the fallen Soul.

173/2: Matter is subconscious will. This material world is created by a subconscious Mind.

174/3: The Self-existent who as the seer and thinker becoming everywhere has arranged in Himself all things rightly from years eternal according to the truth of what they are.

175/4: It is not a subconscious Mind that has created the world, but a Supermind.

175/5: What is Life? Why has He created evil?

176/6: Life is a dynamic energy that persists by a constant stimulation of disintegrative forces. Even in death there is no cessation of life.

176/7: There is one all pervading Life that could survive the abolition of earth.

177/8: What is the difference between life in us, in the plant, in the animal and in the metal?

177/9: We cannot mistake the processes of life for life.

178/10: Modern Science proves the existence of Life in the plant and the metal. It is there everywhere.

179/11: A great Indian scientist has proved the presence of life in the plants. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material-Energy are the three variations of World-Energy.

180/12: Life can be restored, within limits, if there is no damage to the system.

180/13: The real death of the body occurs when the Will in the universe withdraws and supports the process of dispersion.

181/14: Life, a dynamic display of the Force, is recognised easily in the plant not in the metal or chemical atom.

182/15: The presence of life in the metal can be discerned exactly on a parallel to our discovering the life in the plant.

183/16: When the conscious energy is absorbed in the work, the conscious becomes subconscious. When it rises to the superconscient, the subconscious becomes conscious.

183/17: Life is a field where the transition from inconscience to consciousness is worked out.

184/18: For Life to evolve out of Matter, it should be involved there as a formative power, a power of a grade of Being that descends.

186/19: Life takes the sensation of the body to the mind, converts it into thought and brings it back to modify matter.

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ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்த சுடர்
 
உடல் தன்னைத் தானே குணப்படுத்திக் கொள்வது அபாரத் திறனால். அது, முதல் நிலையாகும். சத்திய ஜீவியம் ஏற்பட்டபொழுது உடலின் திறன் வெளிப்படுவது ஒன்பதாம் நிலை.
 
முதல் நிலையில் தன்னைக் குணப்படுத்தும் உடல்
முடிவில் தன்னைத் தானே சிருஷ்டிக்க வல்லது.
 
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ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்த சுடர்
 
நூறு முறையும் சொன்னதைத் திருப்பிச் சொல்ல வெட்கப்படுபவர்கள் அதே எண்ணம் மனதில் ஆயிரம் முறை வருவதால் வெட்கப்படுவது இல்லை. பெருமையும் படுவார்கள். மேலெழுந்த மனத்தின் அறியாமை இது.
 
சொல்ல வெட்கப்படுபவர்கள்,
நினைக்க வெட்கப்படமாட்டார்கள்.
 
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book | by Dr. Radut