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Absolute Reality and phenomenal reality
At first we admit an Absolute Reality as the origin and support of all things. The Absolute Reality is indefinable and ungraspable by the mind. But it can be revealed through a spiritual knowledge by identity which can seize Reality in its fundamental aspects and its manifested powers. We discover there are fundamental truths of the Absolute but there are also truths which are a bringing out of something eternally true. This bringing out of truths results in forming another type of reality which is not fundamental but temporary and phenomenal. But nevertheless, though temporary and phenomenal, something of the original Absolute is carried by it "and not something fortuitous, not baseless, illusory, a vain constructed figure". (CWSA 21-22, pg.685) Even Evil and Falsehood which deforms and disguises Truth are real in their own field and are not essential but contributory to the manifestation. Therefore the universe is a real manifestation of the Absolute and not a vain illusion. "The universal then is real by virtue of the Absolute of which it is a self-manifestation, and all that it contains is real by virtue of the universal to which it gives a form and figure". (Ibid)
Being and Becoming
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality". (Ibid) The Becoming is a persistent yet mutable form of the Being, it is a creative energy and working out of the Being. Materialistic theories try to set the Becoming as sufficient to itself but are based on half-truths. Science pursues an exclusive concentration on a certain aspect of the Becoming to know it properly but this attempt is validated only because the Being is present in the Becoming in "every infinitesimal atom and in its boundless expansion and extension". (Ibid) Becoming can know itself perfectly when it knows itself as Being. The soul in the Becoming fulfils itself when it possesses the Infinite and Eternal. "To do that is the supreme aim of our existence". (Ibid) The truth of our being "becomes in the soul a necessity of manifestation, in matter a secret energy, in life an urge and tendency, a desire and seeking, in mind a will, aim, endeavour, purpose; to manifest what is from the first occult within it is the whole hidden trend of evolutionary Nature". (Ibid, pg.685-686)
Illusionism cuts itself off from the Becoming which is temporary and phenomenal to enjoy the Absolute which is infinite and Eternal. But the Becoming is also a self-power of the Infinite and the Eternal. The soul in the Becoming can know itself as the Being -- Infinite but expressed in the finite; timeless but expressed in time. "This realisation is the culmination of the Becoming; it is the fulfilment of the Being in its dynamic reality". (Ibid, pg.686) This too should be a part of the total truth of things.
The next affirmation to be made is that if Sachchidananda or Existence-Consciousness-Delight is the fundamental reality, then it is at the foundation of not only the Being but also the Becoming. In that case the negative attributes of the Inconscience, the apparent Non-Being and Matter must at one point reveal their hidden positive attributes that are in resonance with Sachchidananda.
The One Being contains the multiplicity
The Being is not only one but infinitely one and simultaneously contains in itself the multiplicity so that the One is All, it is an All-Existence. "The infinite multiplicity of the One and the eternal unity of the Many are the two realities or aspects of one reality on which the manifestation is founded". (Ibid, pg.687)
The Being is present in three poises: -- the supracosmic or Transcendent Existence, the cosmic Spirit and the individual Self in the Many. The Many or multiplicity is based on an Ignorance where the Individual Self and thus the Many have lost contact with the unitary essence of the whole existence. But the force of secret unity is borne by the soul together with the pressure of evolutionary nature and this propels the soul to recover its spiritual unity with all creatures. The individual has to universalize oneself and recover its unity with the Cosmos as its greater self and with the Transcendent. This triple aspect of reality must determine the ultimate trend of evolutionary nature.
Views of manifestation
All views of the manifestation that stops short of the Transcendence are partial truths:
(a) The pantheistic view which identifies God with the cosmos is true but is not the whole truth as it omits the supracosmic reality.
(b) The view that affirms the cosmos only but dismisses the individual as a by-product of cosmic energy has a truth when it considers the individual as a product of universal Energy but ignores the fact that the individual is a nature-personality of the soul and that this soul is not a perishable commodity but has its immortal reality in the Transcendence for "the soul is an eternal portion of the Supreme and not a fraction of Nature". (Ibid, pg.688)
(c) The view that that the universe exists only in the individual consciousness is also a fragmentary truth.
Neither the cosmos nor the individual constitutes the fundamental truth of existence for both exist by the Transcendence.
The Divine Being or Sachchidananda is at once impersonal and personal. In its impersonal poise it is an Existence or Consciousness. In its personal poise it is the transcendent Conscious Being or All-Person. The goal of the evolutionary movement is ultimately an identification of the Soul with the Divine Being or Existence. Sri Aurobindo points out that the dualistic or theistic views of existence which affirm the validity of God and Soul has a truth but falls short of the whole truth if it denies the identification of Soul with God which is the goal of evolutionary nature.
Gradations of Consciousness in Involution
Evolution does not proceed from a zero or a blank state. It starts from the Inconscience where the Superconscious gets involved through a process of involution. In the descent into involution there occurs seven gradations of the manifesting Consciousness. Sri Aurobindo groups them as belonging to an upper hemisphere and a lower hemisphere. (Ibid, pg.689)
The Upper Hemisphere
The upper hemisphere consists of three original and fundamental principles that constitute the triune of Sachchidananda: Existence, Consciousness and Bliss together with a fourth principle of Supramental Truth-Consciousness. This fourth principle manifests unity in infinite multiplicity and represents the power of self-determination of the Infinite. This quadruple power constitutes the Upper hemisphere and represents complete freedom and knowledge.
The Lower Hemisphere
The lower hemisphere is constituted of the three principles of Mind, Life and Matter which are powers of the superior principles but they have lost the inherent and spontaneous unity that was there among the principles in the upper hemisphere. This creates "a state of limited knowledge exclusively concentrated on its own limited world-order and oblivious of all that is behind it and of the underlying unity, a state therefore of cosmic and individual Ignorance". (Ibid, pg.690)
As the evolutionary ascent occurs from the Inconscience, the involutionary descent that preceded it ends into the Inconscience. The involved Being and Consciousness in the Inconscience is slowly released during the evolutionary process. At first Matter appears followed by Life in Matter which is followed by Mind manifesting through embodied and living beings. Involved in the Mind principle is the Supermind or Supramental Truth-Consciousness waiting for its time to manifest. This would be the goal of the evolutionary trajectory. Mind, Life and Matter are known to us but the triune principles of Sachchidananda and the Supermind are still secret principles which we know by hints. But their evolution is also part of the destiny of the soul in the Becoming.
Matter is a form of Spirit
The theory of integral knowledge does not only assign Mind as a creative principle and a power of the Being but also accepts Life and Matter as equally powers of the Spirit and carriers of a creative Energy. Mind is not the sole creative principle. In fact, during evolution, the first to appear and dominate all existence is Matter but we soon discover that Matter is actually a result of Energy which again turns out to be the action of a secret Consciousness and Being, "it is seen that the creative Energy in Matter is a movement of the power of the Spirit. Matter itself cannot be the original and ultimate reality". (Ibid, pg.691) Also, Matter and Spirit cannot be divorced from one another for Matter itself turns out to be a form of Spirit. Therefore stands Sri Aurobindo's dictum that in Matter itself can be a realization of the Spirit.
Life-a form of Divine Energy and Mind an outcome of Overmind
Likewise Life when it first evolves seems to be the original secret principle veiling itself in forms of Matter. Yet Life appears to be a form of Divine Energy which turns out to be greater than the Life-Force. In the same breath it can be said that Mind though appears to dominate everything is itself a limited and derivative power. It is an outcome of Overmind or a luminous shadow projected by the Supermind. It can transform itself into the higher values of the supramental Truth-consciousness. "All the powers of the lower hemisphere with their structures of the Ignorance can find their true selves only by a transformation in the light that descends to us from the higher hemisphere of an eternal self-knowledge". (Ibid, pg.692)
Black dragon of the Inconscience
All the three lower powers-Matter, Life and Mind emerge and evolve from the Inconscience and are therefore supported by the "black dragon of the Inconscience". (Ibid) One might be tempted to call the Inconscience as the original creator. "It has indeed to be accepted that an inconscient Force, an inconscient substance are the starting-point of the evolution, but it is a conscious Spirit and not an inconscient Being that is emerging in the evolution." (Ibid) The Inconscience is sequentially penetrated by higher powers so that its resistance is slowly broken down and "the Python coils of its obscurity shot through by the arrows of the Sun-God". (Ibid) The integral knowledge acknowledges the valid truths of all views of existence but harmonises and reconciles these partial truths into a larger truth and integrates them in the one omnipresent Existence.
Date of Update:
29-Jul-25
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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