Self-Existent

Book II

Chapter II

• The only thing that is self-evident to man is his own existence, as it comes from a knowledge of identification.
• When he is thus identified with the outside environment or the universe or even the Self -Existent, the Transcendent will be self-evident to him.
• As it is, man is aware of his body and sometimes his mind and the immediate environment whose knowledge is brought to him by his senses.
• In their condition of samadhi, the Rishis have risen in their tapas to a mental knowledge of the Absolute.
• As mind can only see partially and samadhi is a condition of the unconscious, the whole cannot be seen and what was seen cannot be fully remembered.
• In this chapter - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Sri Aurobindo tries to communicate a vision of the whole to the partial mind through its own intellectual knowledge.
• Intellectual knowledge is incapable of knowing That.
• Still the truth is, that even life and matter that are below mind are That. Therefore, the links must be there. Sri Aurobindo reaches those links and lays them bare before us.
• Not that the links are not there, but man has a way of avoiding them, and insists on knowing his own ignorance. When he is looking for those links and insists on knowing That, Sri Aurobindo shows that he can be led to That.
• Police investigating a crime often cleverly reach the criminal to the wonderment of the victim, as his own thinking is inexperienced. The experience the police have is vast and yields the results.  But it has limits. There are deceptive crimes where the police are as much misled as the client or the public.
• If an act is done and the results are before us, the question is whether one can work his reason backward to locate the person who has done it.
• Life is a vast ocean and an act is a speck there. Mind is sea-like, capable of seeing every possibility in life. Thus, between the two the clues are not seen, are interpreted differently when seen and often calamitous wrong results are arrived at.
• A severely disciplined intellect firmly planted on earth that can refuse the lures of the ‘logic' of life can see the clues, interpret them rightly, see through insight, understand through intuition.
• The adventures of Sherlock Holmes demonstrate these values with respect to crimes in life. This is problem solving.
• Conversely, these methods can be used to avail of the greatest opportunities of life so that centuries may be abridged into decades or years.
• Man knows these methods unconsciously after the accumulation of long experience when he takes it as the process of life.
• Science is the field where such processes are discovered by trial and error without insight and intuition.
• When man honours his intuition and insists on not being deceived, he otherwise has all the clues before him that would lead him to That.
• This chapter examines all those possibilities, takes the mental descriptions of That and shows how all of them can lead to the fullness of that Reality.
• It is done essentially about form, sound, finite, movement, manifestation, the Many, division, individual, personal, but in Time He offers an elaborate explanation that helps us to reach the core of the Truth.
• In the process, he discards or overcomes or avoids the fallacies of human logic and raises them to the level of the Logic of the Infinite.
• It is said that That eludes the grasp of human speech. It is true, but not fully.
• Om is the sound the whole creation emanated from and speech exists in grades that rise to Om. One such grade of speech rises not from the mind but from a point above the head, which the Vedic seers employed. That speech can lead man to That.
• Sri Aurobindo says great literature has approached that centre of speech, as in Shakespeare, and points out that the thousand-petalled lotus is above the head, which serves as that centre. Shakespeare approached it from below. The Rishis crossed it to write the Vedas.
• The mystic statements about the Reality given by the mind are many and taken together they can lead an ardent aspirant to that vision.

- The Omnipresent Reality is that in which all that is relative exists as its forms or movements.

- Mind is Brahman.

- Life is Brahman.

- Matter is Brahman.

- Vayu is manifest Brahman.

- This old man, the boy, the girl, the bird, the insect are all Brahman.

- Brahman is the consciousness that knows itself in all that exists.

- Brahman is the Force that sustains God, Titan and Demon.

- That Force acts in man and animal, energises Nature.

- Brahman is Ananda.

- Brahman is the ether of our being without which none could breathe or live.

- Brahman is the secret Bliss of existence.

- Brahman is the inner Soul in all.

- Brahman has taken a form in correspondence with each created form it inhabits.

- The Lord of Being is that which is conscious in the conscious being.

- He is also conscious in inconscient things.

- The One who is master is in control of the many, that are passive in the hands of the Force of Nature.

- He is the Timeless and Time.

- He is Space and all that is in Space.

- He is Causality, the cause, and the effect.

- He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw.

- All relatives are aspects and all semblances are the Brahman.

- Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and the incommunicable.

- It is the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos.

- It is the Cosmic Self that upholds all things.

- It is also the self of each individual.

- The soul or the psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara.

- It is his supreme Nature or Conscious-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings.

- The Brahman alone is; because of It all are, for all are the Brahman.

- The Reality is the reality of everything we see in Self and Nature.

- Brahman, the Ishwara is all this by his Yoga-Maya.

- He puts them out by the power of his consciousness-Force in Self-manifestation.

- He is the conscious Being, Soul, Spirit and Purusha.

- It is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things.

- He is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipresent All - ruler.

- It is by his Shakti, his conscious power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.

- All these taken together will be comprehensive.

• Let us compare the society to the Brahman. We do not see the society. We see the individual. But the truth is that the individual is part of the society, rather, the individual is the society.
• We do not see the society, but we see the government which is real and concrete to our experience.
• We see the great institutions of the country, the powerful organisations all over the country.
• We know the army defends our borders, and the vast riots in parts of the nation are quelled by the police.
• The airports, sea ports, the railways, the bus routes, the fleet of the lorries all carry cargo and passengers. They are real to us.
• We know the few hundred universities, the few thousand colleges that have turned out millions of graduates and all the intelligentsia of the country, but we do not see the society anywhere.
• So, the wise say the government is society, created by the society, the army, navy and air force are the creations of the government and therefore are the creations of the society indirectly. They are the Society.
• All the great institutions and the monolithic organisations are again society and its own parts.
• The individual, the citizen, the baby, the old men, the genius, the ordinary men, are all the society in the full sense of the word.
• If all of these are the society, my own family is society, I am the society, and still I do not see that mysterious society. My mind understands the Society which my eyes do not see.
• The Brahman which is not seen by my eyes, not conceived of by my mind, is perceived by the atma in me. It can sense it too.
• When all the statements of the mind are put together, the hidden soul awakes and feels the reality of that Reality.

What is this Reality?

• We have several facets and the Reality too has several facets. Therefore, we come face to face with this Reality at many points in different ways, just as we meet the society as shops, roads, ports and post office, and so on.
• Sri Aurobindo presents this Reality to us in three of its facets, as that was how tradition approached the Reality.
• They are called Atma, Purusha, and Ishwara.
• Atma is the Self, Purusha is the Being, the conscious Being and Ishwara is the Divine Being, the Lord of creation.
• In the Society, we can compare these three to the Parliament, the Government and the administration that executes.
• Self, He says, is conceptively creative.
• Purusha is dynamically executive.
• Ishwara is both conceptively creative and dynamically executive.
• The Parliament lays down the concepts of law and national progress.
• The Government creates the dynamic plans to be executed.
• The administration executes them.
• Let us see a parallel in man.
• His mind is conceptively creative, that is, he plans for his future.
• His emotions and works dynamically execute them.
• They are moments of crisis in him when he decides in a trice, as when a great luck moves to him or a danger faces him.
• At these moments he conceives and executes all in a flash.
• This is a subconscious response, while mental planning is a conscious process, steadily executed by his emotions.
• Integral yoga will be complete when the subconscious becomes conscious or man always acts as he does in a crisis.
• Self is transcendent, Purusha is cosmic, Ishwara is individual.
• The Reality, if it reveals all these three facets, reveals itself fully.
• It is like an individual feeling he is a world citizen getting ready to lead the nation. When the three combine in man, man becomes that Reality.
  Self - Existence
• Seeing the Transcendent, Cosmic and the Individual, the totality of the vision of Self-Existence emerges and stands on its own.
• On the other side, we see the universe, which is inexplicable to our reason.
• Sri Aurobindo says the Interminable, Impersonal Being determines, becomes a Person and moves into Becoming which is a mystery to us.
• To our intellect, reason and analysis this is ununderstandable.
• Life is not without examples for the above.
• A catalyst which appears to determine nothing starts a chemical reaction. We throw a ball above and it comes down, determined by what we do not know. What determines the route of a migrating bird is apparently not determinable.
• An impersonal nation produces a Person as a leader, by what process we do not see.
• Ice cubes appear in cold water from where one cannot say.
• One man creates a whole complex which houses a company, how, why, for what reason, by which process, no one knows.
• One ignorant of the workings of a computer sees wonderful figures suddenly appearing on the screen.
• As long as you do not know the process or law of things, they remain a mystery. They are no longer so when you know it.
• The analytical intellect has a way applying its own rules to fields where it is not appropriate.
• If a volleyball is handled the way we do in a football game, it is wrong.
• A public speaker sitting on a committee cannot harangue and succeed.
• Salt is not for tea or coffee. It is no use arguing the taste value of salt in other food items.
• There is nothing wrong with Being and Becoming but everything is wrong with the analysis imposing itself on a totality.
• The cause of an effect in many things is seen, especially when it is physical. Hunger leads to poor health, lack of sanitation to diseases, a stone hitting a glass window breaks it. These are obvious to our understanding.
• What we see here is the result, not the process. We see both the ends of cause and effect but the process in between is not only not seen but we take it for granted and do not question it.
• As we move it from matter to mind, the higher we move the consistency is less consistent.
• As we approach the infinitesimal, the success of reason or its sustainability is also infinitesimal. The infinite is unseizable by any reasonable argument.
• A pinch of salt in a bowl of soup gives it the taste, but it is inexplicable. A small thorn not seen or not easily seen causes unbearable pain. It rains periodically but no reason can explain it. Nor do we know or even attempt to know how the sun or moon are there or punctually appear periodically. Neither the election results not the market price is predictable nor can we explain when the results arrive.
• We have seen the Self, God or Spirit. Their actions are incomprehensible.
• It is the Spirit that manifests things, or it is the Spirit that manifests itself as things. It appears to be a magician.
• Because we do not know, it does not mean we cannot know and there is no reason or process that is not discoverable.
• He who speaks on the telephone may not know how it works, but the engineer who made it knows. We do not know how our food is digested but science knows and the doctor knows.
• We do not know because we accept the result and do not look for the process. We do not know because we disregard all the clues life puts up. We do not know because we try to understand by the mind that which is intelligible only to the Supermind.
• Another important reason for our ununderstanding is our insistence on applying the rules of one place to another place, which we do not do in our life.
• We evaluate education by earning; but no girl evaluates her make-up by its money value.
• The value of a bride is measured by her dowry or beauty but we do not value the joy of a child's play by its use value, nor the value of our own child by its beauty.
• In all places where we have accepted an act or a custom or value, we are reasonable. In all other places, we are unreasonable. In trying to understand God, we can certainly understand Him if we are reasonable.
• The whole chapter is devoted to reasoning with an unconscious mind in about fifteen or twenty ways. Sri Aurobindo brings the buried reason to the surface.

Not that It cannot be known

• Surely it can be known by methods suitable to itself, certainly not by methods available to us.
• The Himalayas cannot be measured by the hands or feet or a tape.
• One cannot unravel the secrets of the TV and its workings by reading school textbooks or newspapers.
• The Himalayas yielded the secret of its height to the geometrical calculation of Mt. Everest.
• The workings of the TV can be understood by taking a course in science.
• The Self-existent is the Infinite.
• Its way of being and action must be the way of the Infinite.
• Our consciousness is limited.
• Our reason built upon it, is finite.
• It is irrational to suppose that a finite consciousness and reason can measure the Infinite.
• This smallness cannot measure that Immensity.
• Not that a poor man cannot build a house; but a poor man insisting on his laziness can certainly not build a house.
• A local leader may be very powerful in the locality; he may excel anyone in his category. However, that does not qualify him on that strength to lead the nation.
• The stars can be seen, studied with profit and precision, but not with the naked eyes. One has to equip himself with a telescope along with the knowledge of astronomy.
• Two hundred years ago, no one could have fully understood the grandeur of the Taj Mahal sitting in South India. He should either go there or wait for the world to supply him its photo or video.
• Our methods are not suitable; but there are suitable methods.
• To know that our methods are not suitable itself is the beginning of true knowledge.
• When we are unable to understand the world, there is a tendency to call the world an illusion or fantasy. It is our inability to comprehend the world that stands in the way.
• The world is rich and opulent. It is managed by a masterly method. The human intellect is poor and limited. Our means are scanty. Hence the difficulty in understanding.
• The process of cotton becoming cloth is cumbersome, resourceful. The production of silk sarees and the patterns there are the development of centuries of work and art. The layman who understands that the silk is from the silk worm cannot trace the creation of that silk cloth in his imagination. It will remain a mystery.
• Ours is an ignorant half-knowledge. The capacity behind science or art is All-knowledge. That defies the comprehension of this.
• Our reasoning is based on our experience.
• That experience is of the physical Nature of plants, trees and animals.
• It is an uncertain understanding of something that acts within limits.
• It sees water flows down the gradient, tree gives fruits and the animal multiplies. Based on these observations, reason forms a certain conception and tries to make these conceptions general and universal.
• It cannot go beyond those conceptions. If anything contradicts that experience, reason declares it is irrational.
• When a rustic person hears of a radio or a phone or a car, he refuses to believe in them, as he cannot conceive of the voice traveling from long distances or a cart moving on its own.
• But his own experience and modern inventions are of different orders.
• Reality lives in several ways, in different orders. Reason refuses it.
• An uneducated man's memory is confined to the persons he knows and the objects he sees. If there is a fair nearby he would know it when others start going to it. Another man knowing that the fair is on Sunday is to him a miracle, an irrational mystery.
• His own conceptions, measures, or standards are different from those of the memory of an educated person.
• He remembers what he has seen. The educated mind thinks of months and days recurring in cycles which is outside the ken of the rustic's thinking.
• A cut in the body cures itself or is cured by a plaster. A headache is relieved by a pill. This phenomenon cannot be explained by anything we know. We take it for granted, but it is baffling. As you rise in the scale, it is more so. We see people singing or even speaking. We ourselves speak. What explanation is there for the origin of speech or music or thought?
• We know objects are lying on the earth unmoved. We see animals moving, birds flying. We understand inanimate objects do not move, winged birds fly. A car moves on its own, a plane rises in the sky. That cannot be explained by this experience.
• A man draws a picture of an animal. We are not able to. Our mind is incapable of understanding how he drew the picture.
• When a man is bitten by a scorpion, a mantra cures it. We are at a loss to comprehend the process. Mantra originates in the spirit inside. Our speech issues out of our vital. Not knowing the spirit inside us, the mantra does not explain to us.
• Ten of us see a hat. Nine of us know it is a hat. One man says the owner of the hat is an intellectual. He thinks. He sees the hat is big, he understands the head must be big. A big head will be an intellectual head. This is a process of thinking, relating the size of the hat with the size of the head. To those who do not think, it remains unexplained.
• We call Mother when the key is lost. Soon we find it. We know this is true in our experience. We can never explain it to ourselves.

- The key is a material object of use.

- We are related to the key by its use value.

- The key keeps in touch with us through our memory and attention.

- When the attention thins or disappears our relationship is snapped.

- The snapped relationship is seen as the loss of the key.

- Unconsciousness invades consciousness.

- Mother is all consciousness.

- The whole world exists in Her consciousness.

- We call Her.

- An intense relationship is created by our call.

- Our call reaches Her. She comes to us.

- Her consciousness touches our memory.

- The key is in Her consciousness.

- Mind now knows where the key is. It is found.

• Human reasoning does not concede Supramental consciousness or its capacity to hold all the objects in the world. Hence the mystery.
• We take three days to write a spreadsheet of names, facts, figures calculated to suit them. A spreadsheet software does it in three hours or in three minutes. We are awe struck. If only we know what software is, we may not be wonder struck.
• The being is infinite, its action too is infinite. It is not covered by what we know as reason. But it is not without its own reason. When we know its own reason, the Being and its action are explicable. With that link missing, the Being is a mystery, a miracle, and so on.
• A child is naughty, does not respond to affection, does not eat or go to school. The parent's affection does not get the child to eat or to go school. She abuses the child, threatens or beats the child. The child obeys. The abuse is out of love and affection. It is a strange reason that delivers affection through abuse! Perhaps it is a higher reason.
• We put hundreds of articles into a basket or a lorry. When we take them out, it is clear to us that they have been put into that receptacle earlier. A man reads a story book and tells that story to others for hours. Both are similar, but the story going into the man's head is not as clear as the articles going into the basket. One is subtle and the other is gross.
• We do not see the Infinite Brahman. We hear all the world has come out of that Infinite Brahman. We do not see the Brahman, nor do we understand or feel the Brahman. We do not see anything emerging out of that Brahman. But the world is before us. It is a mystery. We know of an industrialist converting one hundred acres of land into an industrial complex. We see the man, we see the achievement, but we do not see the process of conversion. Still, we do not dispute it. Even this industrialist has come out of that Brahman. The industrialist himself is the Brahman who created this complex.
• As our mind sees the creation of the industrial complex out of the industrialist, there is something in us that can see the universe emerging out of Brahman. By moving to that centre, that vision can be seen.
• Our physical being is built upon an aggregate of infinitesimal electrons, atoms, molecules, and cells. The law of action of these infinitesimals does not explain the physical workings of the body, much less its mental or spiritual workings.
• Agriculture, trade, business, market, education, and so on are the components of the government. But the rules of agriculture or the laws of business or the pattern of education cannot explain the laws enacted by the Parliament. Still greater is the mystery of the Cabinet plans or the orders of the executive.
• In fact, they are often contradictory or destructive. Loans are distributed after the season, scholarships are given to students who have the means, and dams are constructed in such a fashion that cultivable lands are submerged.
• Each finite has behind it the Infinite without which it is incomplete.
• To improve a child's performance in school,  increasing the discipline will certainly give results, but it has limits, as the boy may not have food. Supply of a meal can increase attendance and it does, but we are not sure whether it will raise the level of learning. Behind is the parental education and parental attention which means we have to wait for a generation. Behind each plane, there is a future plane, until we reach the Absolute.
• Nehru said development is development of consciousness. When the family realises the value of education, the child makes great progress. So also when the inner consciousness of the child is awake, the progress is great. It is obvious to us that children of educated parents of several generations do receive most.
• Behind all that we see is the Infinite, the Absolute. For the greatest result, we must seek the Absolute. In seeking the Absolute, we will have the greatest result.
• For us to have the fullest understanding of the Absolute, there is no use going after partial finites. We must make for the Absolute.
• Being is governed by a Law of the Timeless. We live in Time. Our mind, motives, morals, and ideals are in Time. It is obvious our laws are invalid for an understanding of Being or God. Still that is what we do.
• We live in a caste hierarchy, and within the family there is another gradation of male and female, elder and younger. The court acts on the laws of the land before which all men are equal. We cannot go to court saying a low caste man cannot rent a house in a high caste locality. The Principal's son cannot prevent another child from scoring higher than him, not even the founder's son. The rules of the examination valuation do not respect the special position of the principal's son. Our effort to understand God or His justice is often like this. We know Him as a Being or Becoming. It never strikes us that He can be Being and Becoming. We will declare from the housetops that God cannot be unjust. The truth is He can. It is one of His ways of doing justice to man.
• Our life exists on the surface and the depth, each of which is governed by its own laws differing widely. Laws of the surface are not binding on the life of the depth.
• Law in the court is a law of limitation. It can go into cases only within certain limits of time, scope, right, etc. Human life is governed by moral laws. A man who has lent money to another four years ago cannot go to law to recover it. Nothing prevents the borrower from returning it. Family life is under the spell of blood relationship and affection which cannot be enforced by a court. No court can order a son to maintain the parents. Though it is perfectly right for the court to order the son to do his duty, it is ultra vires for the court.
• The intellect is founded on reason; life is infrarational. In order to control life, one needs insight and intuition. The intellect will flounder against that rock of defiance.
• Deep waters do not warn non-swimmers of danger, nor does the quicksand warn travellers. He who does not know swimming enters the water and learns his lesson by death. You cannot argue with water that it should offer a warning. But one with insight and intuition nearing quicksand will perceive danger before encountering it. There will be the sense of danger. That warns him. Man should approach the Brahman with such a sense of God-perception. To all others, God, the Brahman is a closed chapter, a buried secret.
• The intellect is unable to handle infrarational life. It is most so with suprarational life where only intuition can do duty. The enlightenment of the Buddha, Shankara's conquest of Buddhism, and millions of actions of grace can be explained by intuition but not the intellect.
• A salesman becoming an MLA, a driver becoming a Minister, a loan to the bank sanctioned twice over, a student who failed in the entrance exam recalled to it are some instances of Grace. Behind these apparently irrational acts lies the sense of duty of the salesman, the deep yearning for politics in the driver, the skilful work of the bank client, the high scores of the student. These will escape the intellect, not the intuition. The intuition that can catch these causes behind these acts is also capable of catching hold of the missing links of life with that of the Absolute.
• It does not mean the suprarational is unreasonable or beyond reason. Only that it is a higher reason based on facts that are observable. We do not notice those facts and when we take note of them, we foolishly subject them to the laws of human reason.
• In Pride and Prejudice by the end of the story we know Darcy was in love with Elizabeth but will this wider observation of higher reason help Elizabeth by any stretch of imagination to comprehend that Darcy was in love with her? Whether she could have done so or not, we, after knowing the end can now see these observations in-built into the situation.

- Bingley asks Darcy to dance with someone. This is not a common occurrence. Even here, such a request is made only on two occasions both with respect to Elizabeth. It is not without reason that Bingley requests Darcy. We see that reason at the end.

- Charlotte's advice is along the direction of the end.

- 'She is tolerable.' The voice would have indicated the interest which interested people could know.

- Sir Lucas's request.

- Miss Bingley's rivalry.

- That Elizabeth was not depressed by Darcy's refusal.

- Darcy's request for dance.

- Arrival of Wickham. Darcy was the first to arrive from Derbyshire. A second arrival indicates the significance of the first.

- Elizabeth's stay in Bingley's house.

These and a few other apparently minor points reveal their original significance at the end. Had she noticed all of them, the story would have taken a different turn. Darcy's true interest would have been seen by her in the early stages. These are the links with the Truth behind that human reason misses. Sri Aurobindo implies that one who observes all these clues of life will be lead to the links with the Absolute. 

All the above events can be interpreted as meaningless, arrogant, vain, rivalry, chance, and so on. That way it would have been explained away. Nothing ever happens without its supreme significance. Observation from that point of view will be an exercise of higher reason. Elizabeth was lost in Wickham's charm and swallowed his story of Darcy. After reading Darcy's letter, she wondered how at the very first meeting with a total stranger, Wickham could bring himself to voice a complaint of that nature. Had she paused a moment, slowly she would have weaned herself from Wickham and seen the real interest of Darcy. Not that these are not observable. But it strikes her after reading Darcy's letter. It is not easy for the intellect, but it is possible for the insight and intuition.

• Not that Reason cannot see, but it chooses not to see.
• Around an event there are possibilities pressing to become actualities and actualities trying to result in greater actualities.
• We see the results and we see only what we want to see. We do not see the forces shaping into possibilities and actualities. Behind the forces lies the direction of His Hand.
• In the context of a story this can be clearer .
• Bingley and Darcy come to Netherfield, meet the Longbourn family. Bingley falls in love with Jane, Darcy cancels it and leaves for London. Chance brings Elizabeth into Darcy's path who in a moment of passion declares his love for her and gets stung. Again chance brings them together and Lydia's elopement changes Elizabeth's mind to marry Darcy. This is the story we read.
• It is not chance that brings Elizabeth into Darcy's path. It is the forces of social transition that compel Darcy to seek a lady like Elizabeth in whom the spirit of defiance is emerging.
• Sri Aurobindo opens a chapter on Sakthi saying it is better to know or at least assume that acts originate in Her.
• Forces of social change that are trying to escape Revolution are acting in Darcy to look for a revolutionary minded girl. Social hierarchy puts the bourgeoisie - Bingley - as the intermediary.
• Elizabeth in whom the Spirit is defiantly evolving knows her goal is not a groom but the sister's marriage with a bourgeois. The evolving Spirit is here as expressed goodwill. Here we see two possibilities making towards each other in Darcy and Elizabeth with the dummy Bingley sandwiched in between.
• Darcy leaves Pemberley on this mission to land in Netherfield with Bingley as the cushion. Wickham is his alter ego, his counterpart opposed in consciousness, who on his own leaves for the same destination to fulfil Darcy's mission or his part of Darcy's mission.
• It was a part of falsehood exhausting itself or Truth emerging out of falsehood.
• It is characteristic that Wickham exposes himself by moving to Miss King, clearly offering Elizabeth the choice. She chooses to adore him by her generous emotion that handsome young men need something to live on.
• Life knocks her on the head making her outlive her charm of falsehood.
• Charlotte was one without money or beauty desiring to marry. Her assets are goodwill and mature common sense. As Wickham is of negative service to Darcy and Elizabeth, Charlotte offers positive service to Elizabeth and Darcy in pursuit of her own matrimonial hopes which do come to fruition.
• Mr. Collins hoping to rise in the estimation of Lady Catherine by marrying one of the Longbourn girls, is trying to bring Longbourn and Rosings together which brings Pemberley to Longbourn. As he was meant to inherit Longbourn, his squeamish behaviour inflated by theological education offers this service to Longbourn for reasons of property and Rosings for reasons of living.
• Lady Catherine towards the end of the story clinches the issue for Darcy by describing Elizabeth's headstrong self-will after abusing her. The aristocracy which is on its way to dissolution, confers its gift on Elizabeth by strong abuse. Life accomplishes the result.
• Bourgeoisie that longs to rise closer to aristocracy in the form of the Gardiners serves to unite the aspiring Elizabeth with the repentant aristocrat Darcy.
• The whole chain of events is sparked by the most dynamic shameless member of the society, Lydia. Wickham, whose role was to benefit by any force that is disintegrating, lends his consent to this chain.
• The story takes on the hue of social creation set in this context. Theoretically, each scene can be thus explained. The more we are able to see the story in the light of the process of creation, the more real it is to us. Review of one's life in this context will touch one of the inner links that can ultimately lead to the Absolute.
• The story is the finite, the frontal appearance of social evolution. We can see it as the apparent end of spiritual evolution.
• The major aspects of His Yoga will peep out in the major events of the story. To see them in the minor events is significant.

- Transformation rears its head after the proposal.

- Reversal of consciousness in writing the letter and her reviewing the past.

- As the positives build up, the negative too will build up and whichever is stronger will erupt. This is seen in the elopement.

- The foolish mind is attracted by the charming falsehood. In Mr. Bennet's marriage and Elizabeth's charm this is clear.

- The rising neo-rich is subservient to the still dominant aristocracy. Bingley is docile to Darcy.

- Man does not seek self-awareness. His pursuit of desire compels him to be aware of himself - Darcy's introspection.

- Foolish acts precipitated by men drive them to introspection. Mr. Bennet having married an impossible, loud-mouthed, uncultured female goes into hibernation to produce an Elizabeth following Jane.

- Mr. Bennet gives up his tapas after Elizabeth's birth, and Mrs. Bennet starts her innings to produce the final product of Lydia.

- Mr. Bennet's magnetic attraction to the mighty folly of his wife gives the estate to Mr. Collins, personification of stupidity with a top dressing of university education.

- The charm once felt never dies. Elizabeth keeps her object of charm (Wickham) in her vicinity and feeds him with her money.

- Knowledge is there for us to see. We need the perspective.

- A story will reveal to a mental perspective.

- Our own life will reveal itself only to a perspective of the emotions.

•  Out of the same nexus of forces, different results are possible. The result is determined by a sanction of the divine imperative.

- Netherfield dance, Darcy's proposal, Lydia's elopement could have taken any imaginable direction. The course that the events take reveals the compelling Hand of ultimate sanction.

- Every event in the story deserves a full consideration in this light. The proposal of Collins, Georgiana's plan, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiners' visit to Derbyshire instead of the Lakes, etc. can thus be given the full benefit of such a review.

• All our reason cannot grasp what actually happens, as it is an instrument of Ignorance.

- Elizabeth never knew that Darcy was changing or Lydia was planning an elopement.

• It is the truth of the Infinite affirming itself in the determinisms of the finite.

- Darcy's marrying Elizabeth and not Caroline is the truth of social change affirming itself in the determinisms of the temperaments of Darcy and Elizabeth.

• It is evident that the Infinite consciousness need not act in harmony with our limited reason or according to a procedure familiar to it. Such a procedure is approved  by our constructed notions.

It may do so in obedience to an ethical reason.

Ethics works for a limited good.

The Infinite admits what is considered irrational by our reason.

It does so because it is necessary for the total good.

- Darcy should come and request Elizabeth to dance with her and should not say she was tolerable. It was a procedure familiar to the dancing assemblies, conducive to Elizabeth's reason.

- Our notion of marriage is a constructed one that man should seek the woman on his knees.

- Bingley may do so because his goal is limited, a happy wedding.

- The transition that brought Darcy to Netherfield needs that Elizabeth not be married conventionally, as she needed to overcome the mother in her.

- He abused her, she abused him, neither was polite or had good manners but this was demanded by the selfish nature of Darcy, and the foolish infatuation of Elizabeth.

- Lydia's elopement is socially not permissible, but life at another level admits it and the demand that Darcy should climb down, needed that even. It did lead to the final Good.

• What seems irrational to us is perfectly rational to the totality.

- Lydia's elopement would not have been planned by any family in their senses. It is rational for the final outcome. It is truly rational to Lydia and Wickham. Mrs. Bennet saw no shame in the marriage.

• Reason constructs partial truths and gets off the facts that are inconvenient.

- Elizabeth accepts Wickham's story and overlooks the incongruity of his telling it to her, a stranger.

- The example of complaining parents in the wedding of the daughter, claiming exorbitant dowry for the son is the most illustrative. Should anyone qualify for this rule, he emerges out of irrationality.

• The infinite consciousness has no such rules.

- By no reasonable rule could Nehru have become the Prime Minister in 1947 or Indira in 1964 or Rajiv in 1980.

- A generous mother of a boy desiring no dowry goes a step further to accept the wedding expenses too. By what rule can she be so generous?

- Where is the code of conduct for Darcy to track Wickham?

- Life is full of such great events in our own lives too.

- Only that our choice is frequently different.

- Choice makes man divine.

• The infinite consciousness would have instead large intrinsic truths governing automatically the conclusion and result and would adapt them spontaneously to circumstances which is no standard at all for reason.

- Compare a structured organisation like an office and a family that is not. Even in the company the routine is governed by the structure, fresh ventures are not. A family that is informal based on trust and affection is a far higher functioning unit, but the same basis will create chaos in a company.

• We cannot judge the principles and dynamic operation of the infinite being by the standards of finite existence.

- The market has two segments. One is the established market of routine sales and the other is venture. One cannot venture afresh by the rules of the routine.

• It is imperative on us in a consideration of the Infinite and its being and action to enforce on our reason an utmost plasticity and open it to an awareness of the large states.

- Parents who are helping a son or daughter to establish themselves in life must wean themselves away from an attitude of protective support and know their children must learn by venturing and risk-taking.

• To see the parts alone is an ignorance, for a part may be greater than the whole when it belongs to the transcendence. To see the essence alone is capital ignorance. A whole knowledge must be there into which the parts fit.

- Education and income are parts of personality. To emphasise them will not lead to wholesome growth. The flowering of the individuality is essential, but by itself it will not help survival. That development of personality of which education and income are essential parts will be wholesome.

• Self, Purusha and Ishwara are only aspects of Brahman, but are not the whole Brahman.

- The head of the nation must emphasise important aspects like military, finance or foreign relations. However, if he does not know the pulse of the nation and these aspects as parts of it, he may not long govern the state.

• If Self, Purusha or Ishwara were the ultimate, those who had realised them would have discovered the answers for evil and death.  The whole knowledge will be in possession of one who will be able to solve all the problems of his life and body. As long as such a knowledge does not arise, we are not possessed of the ultimate knowledge.
• The disciple who realised he was the Brahman refused to move away from the path of the elephant. The master told him the elephant too was the Brahman. Sri Aurobindo says it is not enough to know one side of the Brahman, but one needs to know both sides. Mind knows one side and Supermind knows both sides. What would he have done had the disciple known both sides?

- This incident happened in response to his lack of knowledge. It would not have happened if he had knowledge.

- If one who has that knowledge comes before the elephant, he will move away from him as others do but with a superior knowledge.

- In the event his knowledge is of a higher order, the elephant will kneel before him and lift him to sit on his back.

• Our reason insists on our way, sometimes the way of another. The Infinite recognises our way as well as the others' as two expressions of the Self. We must conduct ourselves in that spirit of essentiality.

- The salesman selling for a high price will hurt his future business. Even if the customer is willing to pay a higher price now, the shop would lose him later. Taking the view of the market and the prevailing price, it is best to overlook his own greed and the customer's ignorance. That is the best lasting view.

• All the difficulties we meet in understanding the Reality are verbal and conceptual. They are met by our intelligence. The truth is there is no real difficulty in what the Reality itself is.

- Elizabeth was sore over the fact that Darcy had been cruel and abominable to Wickham, deprived him of a valuable living, and went back on his own father's promise. There was no injustice in reality, as the living was not deprived, and Darcy never went back on his father's promise. All these injustices are there in Elizabeth's infatuation with Wickham's lies and fabrication, not in fact.

- The government is sore over the ignorance of the farmer. It wishes to educate him about modern farming. It wants to advance him loans and subsidize his electricity bill. This is not a true understanding on the part of the government. In hundreds of examples we have seen whenever the farmer is convinced of his profit, he dug wells and raised expensive crops on his own and reaped fabulous profits. The government does not understand where the hitch lies and constructs reasons. This is seen in every industry, that where people are convinced of profits, competition rises high. What is wanted is not support but solid examples of success. The government is offering free primary education and we see parents - domestic servants - paying high fees in private schools. The government has no eyes to see the Reality of the society as we do not see the Reality that is Brahman.

- How many of us will consider for a moment and come out of the social moorings, the milieu and our psychological blinkers? For such a view or vision the Reality lays itself bare.

• The contradiction disappears when we understand that the indeterminability is not negative in the true sense of the word, but a freedom within itself from limitation by its own determinations.

- Mind sees the Infinite Absolute free from any determination. It sees the world that is full of determinants.

This contradiction baffles the mind.

Sri Aurobindo says there will be no real contradiction if we can raise the level of comprehending the Absolute as one who is not bound by contradictions. His new philosophy thus gets a logical basis.

- Life is not without parallels. A subordinate applying for leave of absence applies to his boss, his boss to his own superior. To whom does the head of the department apply? He does not apply for leave. He takes leave and his absence goes to the subordinates as a circular. Life rising higher reverses its behaviour. A problem of apparent contradiction arises only when the mind insists on applying its rules to the higher phenomenon.

- Those who are below seek favours from above. One cannot hope to validate that rule to the end. When we reach the top, we do not ask from whom  to ask for favours. The roles reverse. There, he begins to confer favours. The contradictions disappear.

- In a sale, there is a tough negotiation for terms, for each person tries to get the best for himself. Let the salesman take the view that he is the Absolute where there is no contradictions. The salesman, then, begins to cooperate with the buyer to get him the very best product for the money he is going to expend. The search changes from the best terms to the best product. That way the buyer will end up paying twice more than he originally intended.

• Man is capable of seeing things through and sees the essential nature of what he sees beyond qualities, properties and character. And he can also see the qualities and properties. The Absolute that puts forth all these qualities is not limited by these qualities. Logic is able to see either the qualities or the essentials, as it is of the mind. The logic of the Infinite is able to see the one as the expression of the other.

- A family is best understood by the man who earns and by his income. It is equally valid to say that the woman is the mainstay of the family as it is she who is the soul and spirit of what we know to be the family. To emphasise man or woman as the family is partial. Family comprises of both of them and rises above either centre.

- When a man speaks it is easy to mistake him for his speech and one can describe him as a fine speaker. Man is capable of many things of which speech is one. We are capable of seeing the man fully behind his speech.

- To see the speech alone as the man or the man alone and think he is incapable of speech is the vision of mind which can 'discrete' one aspect entirely from the other.

- To see a customer as a person wanting to buy a product for his own use and entertainment for the cheapest possible price is the mind separating him from the wider market and far wider society of which he is one expression. By being able to see his buying as one activity of the widest society, we enlarge our vision a thousand-fold and our own sale is widened in scope that much. The sale is truly our self-conception.

• One is not oneness.

It moves not, but it is ahead of us.

There can be no oneness in the absence of multiplicity.

- The mathematical one is half of two but oneness is that which embraces the million Many in its essence of unity.

- The earth is peopled by various nationalities such as Indians, Englishmen, Americans, and so on. Their number is legion but all of them unite under the title Man. The increasing difference between men cannot abrogate the oneness that is man; rather the quality of oneness becomes richer with increasing variety.

- When the movement is considered as one expression of a moveless, it can always be ahead of us without moving.

- The small man sees only the different individual families. The broad mind sees the wider society. But there is no need to deny the one or the other. Sri Aurobindo wants us to see both, the families as units of society. He underlines the essential fact that one cannot exist without the other. The increasing number of families will not make the Society more than one.

• The Spirit is Silent as well as in dynamic movement. There is no opposition, cleavage or separation between them. The mind sees them as opposite.

- The status of Silence inevitably includes the dynamic movement. To see them both as one vision is right.

- Sri Aurobindo says the light is not separable from the fire. Likewise, we must see the silence and dynamics together. One cannot exist without the other.

- He also gives the example of the reservoir from which water rushes out to produce electricity. That power is potential in the status of the silent reservoir.

- A man's deposits in the bank can be converted into an industrial complex or not. In either case, the power is true. There is no complex without money. The money is the complex in stillness.

- We can take a further step. The capacity in a man becomes money in the bank. Whether he has earned that money or not, the capacity is there, it is real. Only that it is in potential.

- Further, whether the capacity is developed in potential or not, it is in one's mind and soul. In that sense, all men are equal in Soul Status, not in social status.

- That mind which conceives of the dynamic activity in Silence, the capacity in the mind though not expressed, and the potential in the soul can take the further steps in concept making and can conceive of Brahman.

- To be able to go from life to silence until we reach Brahman is to realise Brahman conceptually in the higher realms of the mind which Sri Aurobindo calls the thought reaching the Absolute.

- In a work as of that in a shop, one can develop great activity, say ten times the usual and see that the energy in selling ten times is there in the shop when it is not selling. One can easily see this potential after releasing that energy, not when there are no sales. From sales, he can move to Silence to the potential capacity of the soul and that status in the Brahman as a concept. Such a concept of Brahman is one's Self-conception of the Brahman, which means he has realised the Brahman in sales. This he can express in his sales as thousand-fold sales.