03. ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம் - லைப் டிவைன்

ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம்

லைப் டிவைன்

(சென்ற இதழின் தொடர்ச்சி....)

கர்மயோகி

XX. Death, Desire and Incapacity

Page 188, Para I: The vital principle is working in Matter. Its appearance is Life. It is Life from the view of material existence. Ours is an evolutionary terrestrial existence. In the last Chapter we have reasoned from such data. One thing is clear in spite of appearance or its way of work under any conditions. The general principle must be the same everywhere. Life is a universal force. It is working to create substantial forms. It creates, energises, maintains and modifies those forms. It is done by mutual play and interchange. It is an exchange of conscious energy. It is done overtly or secretly. That fundamental character always remains. We inhabit the material world. Here Mind is involved in Life. It is subconscious. It is like Supermind which is involved in Mind. And this Life is instinct with an involved subconscious Mind. It is again involved in Matter. Therefore Matter is here as the basis. It is the apparent beginning. In the language of the Upanishads, Matter is Prithivi. It is the Earth-principle, the foundation. The material universe starts with the formal atom. The atom is surcharged with energy. It is instinct with the unformed stuff of a subconscious desire, will, and intelligence. Out of this Matter apparent Life manifests. It delivers out of itself the Mind imprisoned within it. It does so by means of the living body. The Supermind is concealed in the Mind. Mind also has still to deliver out of itself that Supermind. The Supermind is concealed in the working of the Mind. We can conceive of a world otherwise constituted. Mind would not be involved in it at the start. But Mind consciously uses its innate energy. Thus it creates original forms of substance. It is not as here only subconscious in the beginning. Such a world would be quite different from ours. That energy has an intermediate vehicle of operation. It would always be life. The thing itself would be the same. Of course, the process is entirely reversed.

Page 189, Para II: It appears immediately that Mind is only a final operation of Supermind. So Life is only a final operation of the Consciousness-Force. Real-Idea is the determinative form and creative agent of this Consciousness-Force. Consciousness is a Force. It is the nature of Being. This Conscious-Being is manifested as a creative knowledge-will. It is the Real-Idea or Supermind. The Supramental Knowledge-Will is Consciousness- Force. It is rendered operative for the creation of forms. They are forms of united being. They are in an ordered harmony. We call that ordered harmony world or universe. So also Mind and Life are the same Consciousness-Force. It is the same Knowledge- Will. But they are operating for the maintenance of distinctly individual forms. It is a sort of demarcation, opposition and interchange. In each form of being there is a soul. It works out its own mind and life. It does so as if they were separate from the others. In fact they are never separate. They are the play of the one Soul, Mind and Life. They are the different forms of a single reality. It can be put in other words. We know Mind is the final operation of individualising of all Supermind. It includes the all-comprehending and all-apprehending Supermind. It is a process by which consciousness works individualised in each form. It works from the standpoint proper to it. And it does so with the cosmic relations. Those relations proceed from that standpoint. Similarly, Life is the final operation by which the Force of Conscious-Being acts. It acts through the all possessing and all-creative will of the universal Supermind. It maintains its energies. It constitutes and reconstitutes individual forms. It acts in them as the basis of all the activities of the soul thus embodied. Life is the energy of the Divine. It continually generates itself in forms as in a dynamo. It plays with the outgoing battery of its shocks on surrounding forms. It also receives incoming shocks from all life around. They pour in upon and penetrate the form from outside, from the environing universe.

Page 189, Para III: This is our view. Life appears as a form of energy of consciousness. It is intermediary. It is appropriate to the action of Mind on Matter. In a sense, it may be said to be an energy aspect of Mind. There it creates and relates no longer to the ideas. It relates to motions of force. It relates to forms of substance. Let us immediately add something to it. Mind is not a separate entity. It has all Supermind behind it. It is Supermind that creates. Mind is only its final individualising operation. So, also Life is not a separate entity or movement. It has all Consciousness- Force behind it in every one of its workings. It is that Consciousness- Force that exists. It acts in created things. Life is only its final operation. It is intermediary between Mind and Matter that is Body. This is a dependence. Our ideas must be subject to these qualifications. We do not really know Life. It has a nature and a process. We know neither. The Consciousness-Force works in it. Life is only the external aspect and instrumentation. Till we know that, we cannot know Life. Then we can perceive it. We can then execute it with knowledge. It is individual soul-forms. They are mental and bodily instruments of the Divine. It is the will of God in Life. Then only Life and Mind proceed in paths of truth. The paths and movements are of an ever-increasing straightness of the truth. It is in ourselves and things. It is constantly diminishing. They are of the crooked perversion of the Ignorance. Mind has to unite itself consciously with the Supermind. It is separated from it. It was separated by the action of Avidya. So, Life has to become aware of the Consciousness-Force. It operates in it for its own ends. It does so with a meaning of which life in us is unconscious. It is so because it is darkened in its action. Therefore it serves them blindly. Also it serves ignorantly. It is so because time is absorbed in the process of mentalising life and matter. Life must in its liberation and fulfillment serve luminously. Or it must do so with a self-fulfilling knowledge, power and bliss.

Page 190, Para IV: Our Life is subservient to the darkened Mind. Mind’s operation is division. Our Life itself is darkened. It is divided. It undergoes subjection to death. It is also subjected to limitation, weakness, suffering and ignorant functioning. Our creature- mind is bound and limited. It is the cause of all suffering. There is an original source of perversion. It is the self-limitation of the individual soul. It is bound to self-ignorance because it regards itself as an exclusive concentration. It is a separate selfexistent individuality to itself. It regards all cosmic action only as it presents to itself. It presents to its own individual consciousness. The presentation is to its will, force, knowledge, enjoyment and the limited being. It must see itself as a conscious form of the One. It must consider itself embracing all consciousness. It also embraces all knowledge, all will, all force, all enjoyment and all being. It must see all being as one with its own. The universal life in us is itself imprisoned. It is imprisoned in the mind. It is so because it is obeying the direction of the soul. Thus it is imprisoned in individual action. It exists and acts as a separate life. It has a limited insufficient capacity. It undergoes the shock. It does not freely embrace the shock and pressure. They are of cosmic life around it. It is thrown into cosmic interchange of Force. It is constant in the universe. It is a poor, limited, individual existence. Life at first helplessly suffers. It obeys the giant interplay. It has only mechanical reaction. Its reaction is upon all that attacks. They devour, enjoy, use, drive it. Consciousness develops. Light of its own emerges from the inert darkness. It is of the involutionary sleep. The individual existence is dimly aware of its power in it. It seeks first nervously. And then it seeks to master mentally. It tries to use and enjoy the play. The awakening to the power in it is gradual. It is an awakening to the self. Life is Force. Force is Power. Power is Will. Will is the working of the Master-Consciousness. Life in the individual becomes more and more aware in its depths. It too is the Will-Force of Sachchidananda. It is the master of the universe. It aspires itself to be individually the master of its own world. All individual life has an increasing impulse. It is to realise its own power. It is also to master as well as to know the world. The Divine in cosmic existence has a growing self-manifestation. It is its essential feature.

Page 191 Para V: Life is Power. Growth of the individual life means growth of the individual Power. Still we see its being a divided individualised life and force. It prevents it from really becoming master of its world. It would mean to be the master of the All-Force. This is a divided individualised consciousness. It has a divided individualised limited power. And such a will to be master of the All-Force. Only an All-Will can be that. If at all, the individual only by becoming again one with the All-Will can do it. Then it is All-Force. Otherwise the individual form must always be subject to three badges of limitation. They are Death, Desire and Incapacity.

Page 192, Para VI: Death is imposed on the individual life. In two ways it is done. One is the condition of its own existence. The other is by its relations to the All-Force. The latter manifests itself in the universe. The individual life is a particular play of energy. It is specialized to constitute, maintain, energise. Finally it is to dissolve. It does so when its utility is over. It is one of the myriad forms. All serve this form. Each serves in its place, time and scope. It is the play of the whole universe. There is energy of life in the body. It has to support the attack of energies external to it. It is in the universe. It has to draw them in. It has to feed upon them. It is itself being constantly devoured by them. All Matter is food, says the Upanishads. This is the formula of the material world. “The eater eating is himself eaten.” The life is organised in the body. It is constantly exposed. There is the possibility of being broken up by the attack of life external to it. Or its devouring capacity is insufficient. Or it is not properly served. Or there is no right balance. It is between two capacities. One is the capacity of devouring. The other is the capacity of providing food. Or it is a necessity. Food is for the life outside. It is unable to protect itself. It is devoured. Or it is unable to renew itself. Therefore it is wasted away or broken. It is a new construction or renewal. For this it has to go through the process of death.

Page 192, Para VII: It is not only so. Let us again see the language of the Upanishads. The life-force is the food of the body. And the body is the food of the life-force. It can be said in other words. The life-energy is in us. It supplies the material. The form is built by that. And it is constantly maintained. It is renewed. At the same time it is constantly using up the substantial form of itself. It thus creates this form. Also it keeps it in existence. There is a balance between these two operations. It may be imperfect. Or it is disturbed. It is so when the ordered play is thrown out of gear. It is of the different currents of life-force. Then disease and decay can intervene. It can commence the process of disintegration. There is the struggle for conscious mastery. There is the growth of mind. Both make the maintenance of life very difficult. There is the increasing demand of the life-energy on the form. It is in excess of the original system of supply. It disturbs the original balance of supply and demand. A new balance is to be established. Before that many disorders are introduced. They are inimical to the harmony. Also to the length of maintenance of the life. There is the attempt at mastery. It always creates a corresponding reaction. It is in the environment. It is full of forces. They also desire fulfillment. They are intolerant. They revolt against. They attack the existence. It is this existence that seeks to master them. There too a balance is disturbed. A more intense struggle is generated. The mastering life is strong. It can be unlimited. Or else it can succeed in establishing a new harmony. It is with its environment. It cannot always resist and triumph. But one day it must be overcome and disintegrated.

Page 193, Para VIII: All these are necessities. Beyond there is a fundamental necessity. It is of the nature. It is the object of embodied life itself. It is to seek infinite experience on a finite basis. There is the form. It is the very basis of the organisation. It limits the possibility of experience. It can be done only by dissolving the form. It must seek the new form. The soul has limited itself. It does so by concentrating on the movement and field. It is driven back to seek its infinity. Now it is by succession. It adds moment to moment. Thus it stores up Time-experience. It calls this its past. In that Time, it moves through successive fields. And it moves through successive experience or lives. It is successive accumulation of knowledge, capacity, enjoyment. All this it holds in the subconscious or superconscious memory. That is its fund of past acquisition in Time. To this process change of form is essential. For the soul is involved in the individual body. For it, change of form means dissolution of the body. It is in subjection to the law. It is a law of supply and demand. It is supply of the material of form. The demand is on the material. There is the principle of constant intershock. Also there is constant struggle. It is the struggle of the embodied life. It struggles to exist in a world of mutual devouring. And this is the law of death.

Page 193, Para IX: There is a necessity and justification of Death. It is this. It is not a denial of life. It is a process of Life. Eternal change of form is the sole immortality. Therefore death is necessary. The finite living substance aspires for that. Eternal change of experience is the sole infinity. The finite mind is involved in the body. It can attain that. There is the constant renewal of the same form-type. Our bodily life constitutes that between birth and death. This change of form cannot be allowed to remain that. The very nature of existence in Time and Space demands another variation. It is the variation of experience. This is done by throwing the experiencing Mind into new forms. It must be in new circumstances of time, place and environment. For this the form-type must be changed. Unless it is done, it cannot be effectuated. This is only the process of Death. It is only by dissolution. It is by devouring of life by Life. It is only the absence of freedom. It is a compulsion. It is a struggle and a pain. It is a subjection to something. It appears to be Not-Self. It makes this necessity. It is salutary. It is a change terrible to our mind. It is undesirable to our mentality. It is the sense of being devoured and broken up. It appears to be destroyed and forced away. It is the sting of Death. Some have the belief in survival after death. It is personal. Even that cannot wholly abrogate.

Page 194, Para X: This process is a necessity. It is a necessity of mutual devouring. We see it to be the initial law of Life in Matter. Life, says the Upanishad, is Hunger. Hunger is Death. And by this Hunger, asanayamrtyuh, the material world has been created. For Life here assumes a mould. It is material substance. And material substance is Being. The Being is infinitely divided. It is seeking infinitely to aggregate itself. There are two impulses. They are infinite division and aggregation. The material existence of the universe is constituted between these two impulses. The individual is the living atom. The individual attempts to maintain itself. It also tries to aggrandise itself. It is the whole sense of Desire. There is an ineradicable impulse of Existence. It is a physical, vital, moral, mental increase. It is done by a more and more allembracing experience. It is also a more and more all-embracing possession. It is an absorption, assimilation, enjoyment of the inevitable. It is a fundamental experience. It is divided and individualised. It is secretly conscious of its infinity. It is all-embracing and all possessing. There is a secret consciousness. There is an impulse to realise it. It is the spur of the cosmic Divine. There is the lust of the embodied Self. It is within every individual creature. It seeks to realise it first in terms of life. It does so by an increasing growth and expansion. Ours is a physical world. It can be done only by feeding on the environment. It does so by aggrandizing itself. It is through the absorption of others. Or by what is possessed by others. It is a necessity. It is the universal justification of Hunger. It exists in all forms. Still what devours must be devoured. There is the law of interchange. It is of action and reaction. It is of limited capacity. And therefore it is of final exhaustion. It succumbs, governs all life in the world.

Page 195, Para XI: In the conscious mind, vital hunger transforms itself into higher forms. The vital hunger is in the subconscious life. What is vital hunger becomes craving of Desire in the mentalised life. In the intellectual life, it is straining of Will. Intellectual life is thinking life. The movement of desire must continue. It ought to continue until the individual has grown sufficiently. Then he becomes master of himself. It increases his union with the Infinite. It is the Infinite possessor of this universe. Desire is the lever. The divine Life-principle effects its end. It is the end of self affirmation in the universe. It is an attempt to extinguish it. It is in the interests of inertia. It is a denial of the divine Life-principle. It is a Will-not-to-be. And it is necessarily ignorance. One cannot cease to be individually except by being infinitely. Desire ceases to be desire rightly. It is by becoming the desire of the infinite. Then it satisfies itself. It is by a supernal fulfillment. It gives an infinite satisfaction. It is in the all-possessing bliss of the Infinite. Meanwhile it has to progress from type to type. Now it is in mutually devouring hunger. It moves to mutual giving. It is an increasingly joyous sacrifice. It is done by interchange. The individual gives himself to other individuals. He receives them back in exchange. The lower gives itself to the higher. The higher gives itself to the lower. Each is fulfilled in the other. The human gives itself to the Divine. The Divine gives itself to the human. There is the All in the individual. There is the All in the universe. Each gives itself to the other. The one receives its realised universality. It is a divine recompense. Thus there is the Law of Hunger and also a Law of Love. There is the Law of division. Also the Law of unity, the Law of Death and Law of immortality. They interchange. Such is the necessity and justification of Desire. It is a self-fulfilment of Desire. It is the culmination. It is the work of the universe.

Page 195, Para XII: This mask of Death is assumed by Life. It results from the movement. It is the movement of the finite. The finite seeks to affirm its immortality. Desire is the impulse of the Force of Being. It is individualised. It affirms progressively in the terms of Time and Space. It is succession and self-extension. It is within the framework of the finite. It is infinite Bliss, the Ananda of Sachchidananda. The impulse assumes the mask of Desire. It comes directly from the third phenomenon of Life. It is the law of incapacity. Life is an infinite Force. It works in terms of the finite inevitably. There is the overt individualised action. It is in the finite. Throughout its action its omnipotence must appear. It must act as a limited capacity. Also it is a partial impotence. Behind every act of the individual there is something. It is the superconscious and subconscious presence. It may be weak, futile, stumbling. It is of infinite omnipotent Force. It is indispensable. Without it no single movement of the cosmos can happen. There is the sum of universal action. Each single act and movement falls into it. It is by the fiat of omnipotent omniscience. It works out as the Supermind. It is inherent in things. The Lifeforce is individualised. It is limited to its own consciousness. It is full of incapacity. It has to work against life-forces. It is a mass of environing forces. They are individualised. It is subject to control by the infinite Life. It has its denial. Its total will has a trend of its own. The trend may not agree immediately. There is the limitation of force. There is the phenomenon of incapacity. There are three characteristics. This is the third. It is of the individualised, divided Life. There is something on the other hand. There is the impulse of self-enlargement. Also the impulse of all possession is there. It does not and is not meant to measure or limit itself. It can be done by the limit of the present force or capacity. Hence there is a gulf. It is between two impulses. One is to possess and the other is the force of possession. Desire arises from there. There may be no such discrepancy. If so, the force could always take possession of its objects. It can always attain securely its end. Then desire would not come into existence. Only a calm and selfpossessed will would be there. It would be without craving. The Will of the Divine is such.

Page 196, Para XIII: The individualised force is the energy of a mind. Suppose the mind to be free from ignorance. In that case no such limitation would be there. No such desire would intervene. The mind would not be separated from Supermind. Then it would be a mind of divine knowledge. It would then know its intention. It would know the scope and the inevitable result of its acts. Then it would not crave or struggle. It would put forth an assured force self-limited. It would be to the immediate object in view. It would stretch beyond the present. It would undertake movements not intended to succeed immediately. They would not be subject to desire or limitation. There are failures of the Divine. They too are acts of omniscience, omnipotence. It knows the right time and circumstance for the incipience. It knows the vicissitudes. It knows the immediate and final results of its cosmic existence. The mind of knowledge in unison with the divine Supermind would participate in this omniscience. It would be an all-determining power. The individualised life force here is an energy. We have seen what it is. It is the energy of individualising Mind. It is ignorant. It has fallen from the knowledge of its own Supermind. Therefore incapacity is a necessity. It is necessary to its relations in Life. It is inevitable in the nature of things. There is a practical omnipotence. It is of the ignorant force. It is unthinkable even in a limited sphere. In that sphere such a force would set itself against the working of the divine. The divine is omnipotent and omniscient. It would unfix the fixed purpose of things. It is an impossible cosmic situation. There is the struggle of the limited forces. It increases its capacity by that struggle. It is under the driving impetus. It is of the instinctive or conscious desire. It is the first Law of Life. As with desire so with strife. It must rise into a mutually helpful trial of strength. It is a conscious wrestling of brother forces. In this, the victor and the vanquished equally gain and increase. There is an influence by action from above. There are other influences by retort of action from below. Both gain. There is the strenuous clasp of Love. There is the convulsive clasp of strife. Both in the divine interchange receive a happy shock. Still strife is necessary. It is a salutary beginning. Death, Desire and Strife are the trinity of divided living. It is a triple mark of the divine Life-principle. It is the first essay of cosmic self-affirmation.

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