Three Statuses

May 14, 2002

• Man knows life that is a blind force enacting karma in his life.
• Life is the plane of force activated by the knowledge of mind.
• Originally this force is the one that issued out of consciousness.
• In evolution this force rejoins consciousness.
• Though this force issued out of consciousness, there is consciousness inside this force which is the consciousness of the force.
• If Man knows life, the sannyasi knows a life-shunning tapas.
• Sri Aravindam speaks of a life where the evolving consciousness emerges.
• This concept is behind the writing of The Life Divine explicitly explained in several places. One of them is pages 640-641.
• To know the three statuses in the four planes of Sat, Chit, Ananda and Supermind and the terms of Form, Finite, Time, Many, Personal, Movement, Action and every conceivable status will help in reading The Life Divine.
• The Unmanifest Manifests and inverts its terms into its opposites. Out of the opposites emerges what is involved. Manifestation - Inversion - Emergence are the three conditions.
• It comes out best in Time and Timelessness. The Timelessness evolves out of Time to function simultaneously which HE calls Simultaneous integrality of Time-eternity and Timeless-eternity.
• Sat divides itself into subjective and objective statuses while there is a further dimension of the original subjectivity which includes the objective.
• Brahman manifests as Sat and Asat which means Sat and Asat are included in the unmanifest Brahman. As they both are included in the unmanifest Brahman, so they both reconcile in union and unity in the manifest Brahman. So, the three status are,

Sat - Asat - Unmanifest Brahman and Manifest Brahman.

• Becoming issues out of Being; but the Becoming too is based on Being which when it emerges is NOT the original Being but is richer by the experience of Becoming. Hence we have

Being - Becoming - Being of the Becoming.

• In the chapters on Delight of Existence Sri Aurobindo does phrase this phase of HIS thought as Delight of Being changing into Delight of Becoming in quest of which Brahman created. Delight of Becoming is a higher order of delight than the Delight of Being, even as Being of the Becoming is a higher order of Being than the original Being.
• An analogy will be the money in the bank invested in production comes back with an increased experience of production and distribution. Two things are seen here,

1. When it comes back, - if it comes back - it comes back in increased quantities, lakhs multiply into millions or even crores. The principle is true when it returns in diminished quantities as it brings the commercial wisdom one does not have.

2. The increased return comes along with a greater social status for the experience of which one risks his own bank deposits.

• The third status which very much resembles the first status is to be noted as one which is richer by the experience of involution and evolution. It is important that the third status is NOT to be equated with the first in spite of the resemblance.
• Sri Aurobindo goes to great lengths to emphasise this difference and distinguishes the plane as one of Self-existence and above the plane of Ignorance of dualities. The good in human life is the opposite of evil, while the Good in the supramental plane above is Self-existent GOOD. The third status He speaks of is this higher GOODNESS emerging as a result of evolution in human goodness in the life below. So evil changes into good and good evolves into GOOD.
• Sri Aurobindo's original contribution to the science of logic is the concept of Logic of the Infinite. He says all mysteries of life and its paradoxes will vanish when we admit the higher reason and Logic of the Infinite.
• Out of this position He says that the Absolute is

1. Free, utterly Free, not even bound to this Freedom.

2. not indeterminable in the sense that it cannot determine but in the sense it is NOT bound by any determinism.

• Sat inverts as Matter.

Sat senses its conscious status as Delight of Being.

The inverted Matter senses itself as Delight of Becoming.

Being or Sat having become conscious first senses itself later as Delight of Being.

Matter which is inverted Sat is existence, but is the Delight of existence in creation.

To reach the Delight of Becoming it has to go through the consciousness which is hidden because of inversion.

So, Matter, Delight of existence tempts the hidden consciousness to discover the secret godhead. Page 239 of The Life Divine.                                                                                

Sat discovers itself as Delight of Becoming by this evolution.

• Formlessness - Form Formlessness is apparently our formula for want of a well developed vocabulary. The first condition is the original condition from which Form issues but the original status is NOT Formlessness which is the opposite of Form, but an original condition out of which Form and Formlessness can emerge. In the analogy of money we see the stages of capital - investment - returns (capital and profit).
• Form issues out of an original condition and evolves into perfect FORM, which is seen as formlessness apparently. To be able to CONCEIVE of these three statuses in all conditions of life or at least finite, silence, Time, Many, etc. will help in comprehending The Life Divine better.