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One might speculate that the soul abruptly descended into the Ignorance of the Inconscience and subsequently evolved from there. But then there would be the Absolute above and the Inconscience below with no intermediate planes of consciousness other than Matter and Spirit. This would be an oversimplified notion.
Or it might be guessed that the eternal individual soul had by some innate desire taken the decision to plunge into the Ignorance or a collectivity of souls might have taken that decision for the cosmos cannot be explained by an individual soul only or that desire may have drawn down an All-Soul into the Inconscience. Or if not impelled by desire, the All-Soul itself had taken the sole decision to plunge into the Ignorance. The individual soul or the All-Soul then begin their upward evolution. Or we can guess that if the individual is a fiction of the phenomenal Ignorance, then an original indiscriminate Prakriti may have designed these individual beings and the soul is a temporary product of the inconscient force-substance.
Sri Aurobindo is of the view that "the cosmos is a self-graded devolution out of the superconscient Sachchidananda". (CWSA 21-22, pg.797-798) He rejects the view that there are only two planes of existence or only one plane, the material plane. He believes that evolution has a meaning and rejects the notion that an evolution out of the Inconscience to some kind of knowledge is sufficient to allow "the extinction of a misbegotten soul or an escape out of a mistaken soul-adventure." (Ibid, pg.798)
One might argue that a conceptively creative Idea belonging to the mind or to the life in mind of the individual has been the determinant of creation and in that case mind and life (as the Idea is a movement of the mind and desire is a movement of life in mind) must be preexistent powers creating worlds of their own supraphysical nature. Or perhaps the world is created not by universal Mind or Life but by a will in the Spirit -a will of Being deploying something of itself to realize a creative Idea. The traditional Indian idea is that the world has been created by the universal Delight of existence but instead if it is argued that the world is created by the desire of the individual soul for its egoistic enjoyment, there is no place for Cosmic Being or a Transcendent Divinity. But the world cannot be created for the individual only or for egoistic satisfaction. The world is too vast and only a cosmic Power or Being can create and uphold a cosmic reality. What if instead of the conceptively creative Idea there is the One eternal Spirit that is the originator of the Real-Idea -"which is Being aware of what is in itself and automatically self-creative by the force of that Truth-awareness". (Ibid)
As the One is the primary fact of existence, the Many depend on the One, are souls of the One and therefore the universal precedes the individual though both originate in the Transcendence. The individual soul lives by the All-Soul though the All-Soul is not dependent on the individual. The All-Soul is not a summation of souls, it is "the one Cosmic Spirit supporting the one cosmic Force in its works". (Ibid, pg.799) It is inconceivable that the Many live independently or force the supreme Sachchidananda to descend unwillingly in the Nescience. Even if the Many create the world, it must be preceded by a Will in Sachchidananda to effectuate it. "The One, the All-Soul, by whom alone the consciousness of the Individual is determined, must first accept the veil of inconscient Nature before the Individual too can put on the veil of the Ignorance in the material universe". (Ibid, pg.800)
If we accept that the Will of the supreme and cosmic Being as the prime condition of the material universe, then we can no longer accept Desire as the creative principle for Desire has no place in the Supreme Being or All-being. A supreme and universal Being can have the delight of its all-existence, not desire.
Moreover, if the Spirit has willed to plunge into the inconscience of Matter, it must be as there was a possibility and potentiality of its self-creation or manifestation. "But a sole material universe and an evolution there out of inconscience into spiritual consciousness cannot be the one solitary and limited possibility of manifestation of the All-being." (Ibid) For then there would be no separate plane of the Superconscient as well as no supraphysical worlds.
Supraphysical worlds
But actually there are supraphysical worlds -worlds of Mind and Life which are too different from Matter. "Matter itself is a product of Energy, and mind and life must be regarded as superior products of the same Energy". (Ibid, pg.801) And if the cosmic Spirit exists, the Energy must be spiritual; life and mind should be independent products of that spiritual Energy. Matter alone then cannot exist and Matter cannot be the sole basis for manifestation of the Spirit. "Spirit must be capable of basing its manifestation on the Mind principle or on the Life principle and not only on the principle of Matter; there can then be and logically there should be worlds of Mind and worlds of Life; there may even be worlds founded on a subtler and more plastic, more conscious principle of Matter". (Ibid)
Sri Aurobindo notes that three interrelated questions arise about the supraphysical worlds.
(a) Firstly, whether there is any evidence that such worlds exist?
(b) Secondly, if they exist, are they arranged hierarchically between Matter and Spirit?
(c) Thirdly, if these worlds exist, are they independent or they interact with the world of Matter?(Ibid, pg.801-802)
Actually mankind has traditionally believed in the existence of other worlds and the possibility of their communication with the human race. But the age of Reason came and rejected a priori such a belief as superstition because Matter is considered to be the only reality.
Actually the demand for a physically valid proof of the supraphysical is erroneous. The supraphysical can indirectly act on our mind and life-being to influence our physical life. "If it objectivises itself, it must be to a subtler sense in us and only derivatively to the outward physical sense. This derivative objectivisation is certainly possible". (Ibid, pg.802-803) Sri Aurobindo points out that this is what happens with the faculty of second sight that is associated with various parapsychological phenomena. It proves the existence of other planes of being and our communication with them. Our physical mind is not the whole of us. (It is a fact that parapsychological experiments are carried out in strictly objective terms but the Matter based scientists reject them a priori on the basis that they do not represent material science.)
It can be said that subjective experience can be erroneous but materialistic based experiments can also be erroneous. "Our subjective being is the basis of our objective experience, and it is not probable that only its physical objectivisations are true and the rest unreliable. The subliminal consciousness, when rightly interrogated, is a witness to truth..". (Ibid, pg.803) It is true that we cannot always rely on the beliefs of the past though they might not be fully rejected. A belief is a mental construction that often distorts the truth. "All truth supraphysical or physical must be founded not on mental belief alone, but on EXPERIENCE". (Ibid, pg.804) Such experience must be physical, subliminal or spiritual, appropriate to the order of truths; they must be assessed according to their own law and not according to the law of another domain.
Our inner experience conveys to us that there are larger supraphysical planes of consciousness than the purely material plane. These domains of larger being penetrate and envelop the physical plane with their invisible powers and these powers are also felt to be behind the material world. There are two main orders of such experience::
(a) Purely subjective
(b) More objective or subjective-objective.
Subjective experiences
We find that what shapes as life-intention, life-impulses, life-formulations are already present as pre-existent forces pressing upon us to realise themselves in the physical world but only a part succeeds in getting through in consonance with the terrestrial law. This phenomenon occurs without our knowledge and we take them as formations of our own life and mind. But a deeper introspection reveals in a subtle sphere the origin of these movements. We can feel the powers and influences of larger domains of consciousness acting on us. This subjective experience results in a pressure of ideas, suggestions and emotional formations and we may trace part of such pressure as belonging to our own subliminal self but even if we do that we are aware of "an element which bears the stamp of another origin, an insistent supraterrestrial character". (Ibid, pg.805)
Subjective-Objective experiences
Our mind and life also open to a range of subjective-objective experiences where the supraphysical planes present as organised worlds with a different law of action and different substance that belongs to a supraphysical nature. There is an existence of beings who can take forms to manifest but with a substance other than ours. These beings might or might not have contact with us. When they have contact with us, they can at times guide us or misguide us. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a battleground between supraphysical Forces. They might try to uplift and illumine or deflect and prevent the upward evolution. Some of these Beings might be considered as divine, others as Titanic or demoniac. (Ibid, pg.806) A contact can be objectivised between our own consciousness and the consciousness of once embodied beings who have passed into supraphysical status. It is possible to enter a subliminal status and enter other worlds and know something of their secrets. Such contacts are too real and insistent to be labelled as superstition or hallucination.
It can be presumed that these supraphysical worlds and beings, gods and God Himself are mere creations of man and thus comprise a sort of myth. It can be speculated these myths are imaginations used by the creative Consciousness-Force to materialise its own idea-forces which can then take on some form and body. "But if that were so, if a subjective consciousness can thus create worlds and beings, it might well be that the objective world also is a myth of Consciousness....Thus, on this line of thinking, we swing back towards a view of the universe in which all things assume a certain hue of unreality except the all-productive Inconscience out of which they are created, the Ignorance which creates them and, it may be, a superconscient or inconscient impersonal Being into whose indifference all finally disappears or goes back and ceases there." (Ibid, pg.808)
Date of Update:
31-May-26
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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