02. ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம் - லைப் டிவைன்

ஸ்ரீ அரவிந்தம்

லைப் டிவைன்

கர்மயோகி

27. The Sevenfold Chord of Being

(English Summary)

We have examined seven great terms of existence. The ancient seers had fi xed on them. These terms are the foundation and mode of all cosmic existence. We have discovered the gradations of evolution and involution. We have arrived at the basis of knowledge we were striving for. We have declared that the origin, and ultimate reality of all in the cosmos is a triune principle. This principle is of transcendent and infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. This is the nature of divine being. Consciousness has two aspects. One is illuminating state and power of self-awareness. The other is state and power of self-force. By these two, the Being possesses itself. It does so in both its static condition and in dynamic movement. In its creative action, it knows all that is latent within it. It has an omniscient self-energy. Through this it governs the universe of its potenti alities. This creative action of the All-existent has its nodus in the fourth principle of Supermind. It is an intermediate principle or Real-Idea. In this Supermind a divine Knowledge is one with self-existence and self-awareness. It is one with a substantial Will. It is in perfect unison with that knowledge. It is the divine Knowledge which develops infallibly the movement, form and law of things. This law of things is in right accordance with their Truth. They are in harmony with the significances of its manifestation.

The creation depends on and moves between the biune principles of unity and multiplicity. It is a manifoldness of idea, force and form. These are the expressions of an original unity. The creation is an eternal oneness. This oneness is the foundation and reality of multiple worlds. It makes their play possible. The Supermind proceeds by a double faculty of comprehensive and apprehensive knowledge. It proceeds from the essential oneness to multiplicity. It comprehends all things in itself and as itself, the One. It apprehends all things in itself as objects. They are objects of its will and knowledge. In its original self-awareness, all things are one being. They are one consciousness, one will and one self-delight. The whole movement of things is a movement of one. Supermind proceeds in its action from unity to multiplicity and multiplicity to unity. It creates an ordered relation between them. This creates an appearance of division. But it is not a binding reality of division. It is a subtle unseparating division. It is a demarcation, a determination within the indivisible. Supermind is the divine gnosis. It creates, governs and upholds the world. Its secret Wisdom upholds our knowledge and our ignorance.

Mind, Life and Matter are a triple aspect of these higher principles. They work in subjection to Ignorance in the universe. The One is at play in division and multiplicity. In this play the One is apparently self-forgetful. Mind, Life and Matter are in subjecti on to this self-forgetf ulness. Really these three are only subordinate powers of the divine quaternary. Mind is a subordinate power of Supermind. It takes its stand in division. It forgets the oneness behind. But it can return to oneness by re-illumination of the supramental. Life is a subordinate power of the energy aspect of Sachchidananda. It is Force working out form. It is working out the play of conscious energy. This is from the standpoint of the division caused by Mind. Matter is a form of the substance of being. Sachchidananda assumes this form. It does so when it subjects itself to its own phenomenal action.

There is a fourth principle. It manifests at the nodus of mind, life and body. That nodus we call the soul.

But it has a double appearance. In front is the desire-soul. It strives for the possession and delight of things. Hidden behind this is the true psychic enti ty. This enti ty is the real repository of spiritual experiences. This fourth human principle is a projection. It is a projection and action of infinite Bliss. But this action is in terms of our consciousness. It is under certain conditi ons. They are the conditions of soul evolution in this world. By nature the Divine is an infinite consciousness. Its existence is the self-power of that consciousness. The nature of its infinite consciousness is pure and infinite Bliss. Self-awareness and self-possession are the essence of its self-delight. The cosmos also is a play of this self-delight. The delight of that play is possessed by the Universal. But it is held back in the individual. This is due to the acti on of ignorance and division. It is held back in the subliminal and superconscient being. On the surface it is lacking. It has to be sought for, found and possessed. This can be done by developing the individual consciousness. This development is towards universality and transcendence.

We may pose eight principles instead of seven. We see that our life is a refraction of the divine existence. This refraction is in inverted order of ascent and descent.

Existence - Matter

Consciousness - Force - Life

Bliss - Psyche

Supermind - Mind 

The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss. It descends too through the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being. We ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind. Beyond we ascend to Supermind, an illuminating medium, towards the divine being. The higher and lower hemisphere meet at a knot. This is where mind and Supermind meet. There is a veil between them. For the divine life in humanity, the tearing of the veilis the condition; by tearing the veil, there is a descent. The higher descends into the nature of the lower being, and the lower being ascends forcefully into the nature of the higher. Through this the mind can recover its divine light in the all-comprehending Supermind. The soul can realise its divine self in the all-blissful Ananda. Life can repossess its divine power. This power is in the play of omnipotent Conscious-Force. Matter can open to its divine freedom and become a form of the divine Existence. The human being is the present crown and head of the evolution. The goal of evolution is not an aimless circling. It is not an individual escape from the circling. This creature, the human being, has an infi nite potentiality. This creature has an infinite potentiality. He alone stands here between Spirit and Matter. He alone has the power to mediate between them. It is not just an ultimate awakening from the delusion of life. It is not awakening by despair and disgust of the cosmic effort. It is not a rejection of life. His life has meaning. Its meaning is a luminous, powerful transfiguration. It is an emergence of the Divine in the creature. This must be the high-uplifted goal. This is that supreme significance.

This transfi gurati on may be changed from an essenti al possibility into a dynamic potentiality. There are psychological and practical conditions for it. Before turning to these conditions, we have to consider much. We must consider the essential principles of Sachchidananda’s descent. We must consider the large plane of its order here. We must consider the nature and action of the power of Conscious-Force. This Force reigns over the conditions in which we live. The seven or eight principles we have already examined are essential to all cosmic creation. They are there manifested or unmanifested in us. We are far from being the adults of evolutionary nature. We are still this ‘Infant of a year’. The higher Trinity is the source of all existence. It is the basis of all play of existence. All cosmos is an expression and action of its reality. No universe can be merely a form of being. It cannot have sprung up in an absolute nullity and void. It cannot remain standing out against a non-existent emptiness. It must be a figure of existence within the infinite Existence behind all figure. Or it must be itself the All-Existence. We see it is really both of these things at once. We can see this when we unify our self with cosmic being. It is the All-Existent figuring Himself out. He figures Himself in an infinite series of rhythms. He does so in His own conceptive extension of Himself. This extension is in Time and Space. Any cosmic action is impossible without the play of an infinite Force of Existence. This play produces and regulates all these forms and movements. That Force is the action of an infinite Consciousness. In its nature it is a cosmic Will. It determines all relations. It apprehends them by its own awareness. It could not do so without a comprehensive Consciousness behind. This Consciousness is behind that mode of cosmic awareness. It originates as well as holds and fixes the relations of Being. The relations of Being are a developing formation. Or they are a becoming of itself which we call a universe.

Consciousness is thus omniscient and omnipotent. It is in entire luminous possession of itself. In its very nature this possession is necessarily Bliss. It cannot be anything else. A vast universal self-delight must be the cause of cosmic existence. This Bliss is the essence and object of cosmic existence. The ancient seer spoke of “this all-encompassing ether of Delight of existence”. He declared that this delight is our ether. “If it were not, then none could breathe, none could live.” This selfbliss may become subconscient. It may be seemingly lost on the surface. It must be there at our roots. All existence must be a seeking to discover and possess it. The creature in the cosmos may find himself in various ways. He may find himself in will and power, or light and knowledge. He may be in being and wideness, or in love and joy. In whatever way he finds himself, he must awaken. He awakens to something of the secret ecstasy. He may awaken to joy of being or delight of realisation of knowledge. Or he awakens to rapture of possession by will and power. Or he awakens to ecstasy of union in love and joy. These are the highest terms of expanding life. They are the essence of its hidden roots. Its heights are yet unseen. Wherever, then, cosmic existence manifests itself, these three must be behind it. They are within it.

The Trinity does not need to throw itself out into apparent being. Or, if it does so, it would not be cosmic being. It would simply be an infinity of figures. They would have no fixed order or relation. But this is not the case. They develop and bring out from themselves a fourth term of Supermind, the divine Gnosis. In every cosmos there must be a power of Knowledge and Will. This power fixes out of infinite potentiality the determined relations. It develops the result out of the seed. It rolls out the mighty rhythms of cosmic Law. This power governs the worlds as their immortal and infi nite Seer and Ruler. It is nothing else than Sachchidananda Himself. It creates nothing which is not in its own self-existence. All cosmic Law is not imposed from outside. It is from within. All development is self-development. All seed and result are seed of a Truth of things. All are the result of that seed. They are determined out of its potentialiti es. For the same reason, no Law is absolute. Only the infinite is absolute. Everything contains within itself endless potentialities. They are quite beyond its determined form and course. They are determined through a self-limitation by Idea. The Idea proceeds from an infinite liberty within. This power of self-limitation is an inherent power in the boundless All-Existent. The Infinite can assume a manifold finiteness. Otherwise it would not be the Infi nite. The Absolute has a boundless capacity of selfdetermination. It is in knowledge and power and will and manifestation. Otherwise it would not be the Absolute. This Supermind then is the Truth or Real-Idea. It is inherent in all cosmic force and existence. It is necessary to determine and uphold relati on and order. It upholds the great lines of the manifestation. The Vedic Rishis described Sachchidananda in their language. Existence, Consciousness and Bliss are the three highest hidden Names of the Nameless. So also, this Supermind is the fourth Name. It is fourth to THAT in its descent. It is fourth to us in our ascension.

Mind, Life and Matt er, the lower trilogy, are also indispensable to all cosmic being. They are not necessarily so with the form which we know on earth. Or with the conditions we know on earth. But they are indispensable in some kind of acti on however luminous or subtle. Mind is a faculty of Supermind which measures and limits. It fixes a particular centre and views from that. It views the cosmic movement and its interacti ons. In a parti cular world or plane, mind need not be limited. Mind is a subordinate faculty. But, one who uses it can see things from other standpoints. Or he can see things from the real Centre of all. Or, he can see in the vastness of a universal self-diffusion. Still he must fix himself normally in his own firm standpoint. This is for certain purposes of divine activity. Suppose there was only universal self-diffusion or if there were only infinite centres without some limiting action for each, then there would be no cosmos. There would be only a Being musing within Himself infinitely. He would muse as a creator or poet may muse freely. He would muse before proceeding to the work of creation. This state may exist somewhere in infi nite existence. But it is not what we understand by a cosmos. It would have a kind of unfixed and unbinding order. Such an order Supermind might evolve.

Supermind has a work of fi xed development. Its work would proceed to measurement and interaction of relations. For that measurement, Mind is necessary. Mind is a subordinate action of Supermind. It needs to be aware only as a subordinate. It need not develop relations on the basis of egoism. This we see active in terrestrial Nature. Once Mind exists, Life and Form follow. Life is simply the determination of force and action. It is the determination of relation and interaction of energy. The interaction is from many fi xed centres of consciousness. These centres are not fixed in place or time. But they are fixed in persistent coexistence of beings or soul-forms of the Eternal. These soul forms support a cosmic harmony. That life may be very diff erent from life as we know or conceive. Essentially it would be the same principle at work. That principle we see here fi gured as vitality. The ancient Indian thinkers called it Vayu or Prana. It is the life-stuff . It is the substantial will and energy in the cosmos. This will and energy is working out into determined form and action. It is working out into conscious dynamis of being. Substance too might be very different from our view of material body. It might be much more subtle. It might be much less rigidly binding. Its law of selfdivision would be less binding. Its resistance would be less binding. The body or form might be an instrument and not a prison. Yet some determination and form and substance would always be necessary. This would be necessary for the cosmic interaction. Even if it were only a mental body, or it might be something more luminous and subtle, it might be more puissantly and freely responsive than the freest mental body.

Wherever Cosmos is, one principle only may seen to be apparent. It may seem to be the sole principle of things. Everything else may appear as no more than its forms and results. They may seem not indispensable to cosmic existence. They are a front presented by being. But such a front can only be an illusory mask. Or it may be an appearance of its real truth. Where one principle is manifest in Cosmos, there all the rest must be present. They are not merely present and passive. They are secretly at work. In a given world it may be in possession of all seven principles. This may be at a higher or lower degree of activity. In another world they may be all involved in one principle. In that world it would become the initial principle of evolution. But there must be evolution of the involved. A world may start apparently from the involution of all in one power. Any world must have a destiny. The evolution of the sevenfold power of being must be that desti ny. Its destiny must be the realisati on of its septuple Name. Therefore the material universe had to evolve apparent life from hidden life. It had to evolve apparent mind from its hidden mind. It must evolve apparent Supermind from hidden Supermind. It must evolve the triune glory of Sachchidananda from the concealed Spirit. There is a question. The question is whether this emergence will take place on earth. Will it take place in the human creation? Will it take place in this or any other material scene? Will it take place in this cycle? Will it take place in any other cycle of the large wheelings of Time? The instrument of this emergence of the Spirit is Time. The ancient seers believed in this possibility for man. They held it to be his divine destiny. The modern thinker does not even conceive of it. If he did conceive of it, he would deny or doubt. He may see a vision of the Superman. But it would be a fi gure of increased mentality or vitality. He would admit no other emergence. He would see nothing beyond these principles. Up ti ll now these have been our limit and circle. In this progressive world this human creature has a divine spark. With him, real wisdom is probably the higher aspirati on. Wisdom is not with the denial of aspiration. It is not with the hope that limits itself. It is not with the hope that circumscribes itself. That would be within narrow walls of apparent possibility. They are only our intermediate house of training. There is a spiritual order of things. In that, the higher we project our view, the greater the Truth. That Truth seeks to descend upon us. It is already there within us. It calls for its release from its cover. It is covered within manifested Nature.

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ஜீவிய மணி

மேல் உலகத்தின் பேரின்பத்தை நம் வாழ்வில் வெளிப்படுத்த சச்சிதானந்தம் முயல்வதையே சிருஷ்டியின் ஆனந்தம் குறிக்கிறது. இந்த ஆனந்தத்தை, சத்திய ஜீவியத்தின் வருகைக்குப் பிறகு அன்பர்கள் அனுபவிக்கிறார்கள். அகந்தையை விடுத்து ஆன்மாவை நாடும்போது சிறியதைக் கடந்து பெரியதை நாடுவதை நாம் இலட்சியமாகக் கொண்டால் அன்னை நம் இலட்சியத்தைப் பூர்த்தி செய்கிறார். மேலே போகப்போக, முயற்சி குறைவு, சாதனை அதிகம். பாடு ஆனந்தமாகிறது. இந்நிலை நீடிக்க வேண்டும் எனில் காலம், மனம், மேல்மனம், அகந்தை, சிறியது ஆகிய ஐந்து கட்டங்களையும் தாண்ட வேண்டும். உடலாலும், உணர்வாலும், மனத்தாலும், ஆன்மாவாலும், சைத்திய புருஷனாலும் சிற்றின்பம் பேரின்பமாகும்போது சாதனை இன்பமயமாகிறது. இன்பம் சாதனையாகிறது.

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