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Ethical values and Vital-physical values
Sri Aurobindo differentiates between ethical good and evil which revolves around sin and virtue and vital-physical good and evil that emerges from psychology and revolves around happiness and suffering. Indeed, two values are attributed to the law of Karma, "moral good and evil, sin and virtue, and vital-physical good and evil, outward happiness and suffering, outward good fortune and ill-fortune" (Ibid) with the supposition that one must be the reward or punishment for the other. Obviously such a contention is also linked to human psychology for the vital-physical of the outer being likes happiness and good fortune and intensely dislikes suffering and misfortune. It erects a cosmic Law for "self-restraint from doing evil and self-exertion towards doing what is good" (Ibid, pg.844) and strikes a bargain which eulogizes the dread of punishment to stick to its path of self-denial. "But the truly ethical being does not need a system of rewards and punishments to follow the path of good and shun the path of evil; virtue to him is its own reward, sin brings with it its own punishment in the suffering of a fall from his own law of nature: this is the true ethical standard." (Ibid) On the other hand, a system of rewards and punishments debases and commercializes the ethical motive. It is meaningless to impose our Ignorance on the operations of cosmic Nature. The soul has to pass through a many-sided complex array of experiences and any Law of Karma must reflect that complexity.
Sin/Virtue; Happiness/Unhappiness
The differentiation between ethical good and evil that is represented by sin and virtue and vital-physical good and evil that is represented in happiness and unhappiness is not absolute though they are distinctive lines of action. Indeed there is a correspondence between the two systems, "a limited correspondence and meeting-point between divergent dualities not amounting to an inseparable coherence". (Ibid, pg.845) Our vital part expects rewards for virtues and approves punishments for sins. And our actions correspond to unleashing of cosmic forces -"invisible forces in Life-Nature that belong to the same plane of Consciousness-Force...Forces that move according to the same plan or the same power-motive as our lower vital nature." (Ibid) Thus if a person displays unscrupulously "self-assertive vital egoism" (Ibid), it unleashes reactions of hatred and antagonism in his surroundings and even more formidable adverse forces in universal Nature which can very well cause his downfall -"the lame foot of Punishment reaches at last the successful offender". (Ibid) These reactions may come in this life or another life, it may happen on a small or a large scale for Nature allows a certain force but reacts against it at the end if improperly used. But Sri Aurobindo rejects the promotion of "this minor line of causes and results" to the status of an absolute Law of Karma for it belongs "to a middle region between the inmost or supreme Truth of things and the impartiality of material Nature". (Ibid, pg.846)
The reactions of Nature does not exist for reward or punishment. It burns if we touch fire but that is not a case of punishment. Indeed it is a twofold mechanism that occurs as is the case with all other Nature's reactions: a lesson of relation and a corresponding lesson of experience. (Ibid, pg.846) The action of the cosmic Energy is very complex to be simplistically considered. Firstly, the same Force may act differently in different cases. Secondly, we are affected not only by our own energies but also by the energies of others as well as by universal forces. Hence the cosmic interplay is too complex to be determined by an all-governing moral law or on the basis of sins and virtues, good fortune and misfortune, happiness or unhappiness of individual human beings.
Experience of the Soul
The soul actually enters rebirth for experience, for growth of the individual being. That growth occurs through all the mixed experiences of life -joy and grief, good fortune and misfortune, pain and suffering; "the soul may of itself accept or choose poverty, misfortune and suffering as helpful to its growth, stimulants of a rapid development, and reject riches and prosperity and success as dangerous and conducive to a relaxation of its spiritual effort." (Ibid, pg.846-847) Happiness and material success may appeal to our vital nature but do not constitute the whole meaning of existence. The capital need of the soul in rebirth is the growth through experience of the soul, all the rest is secondary.
The cosmic existence is not a vast administrative system working under a divine judge. Instead, it is a great "automatic movement" (Ibid, pg.847) of energy of Nature. A motion of energy of Nature is worked out wherein occurs the phenomenon of rebirth where the soul, the psychic being prepares itself for the next formation of personality "organised out of the continuous flux of past, present and future energies" for each new birth is "a step in the growth of the being towards its destined self-unfolding in Nature". (Ibid)
Necessity of a new Personality
This brings us to a certain error of the physical mind which thinks that by rebirth, the same outer personality is reborn again and again. But the repetition of the same little personality, little in relation to the same mental and vital formation has no spiritual meaning and significance. To grow towards the full stature of its reality, "not only a new experience, but a new personality is indispensable". (Ibid, pg.848) The same personality cannot be repeated; if it rarely does, it is to work out something incomplete in the realm of experience in a past life. But normally this is not the case for repeating the same character "would be always the same recurring decimal; it would be not an evolution but the meaningless continuity of an eternal repetition....It is only by a change of outer self, a constant progression of the nature, a growth in the spirit that we can justify our existence." (Ibid)
"Personality is only a temporary mental, vital, physical formation which the being, the real Person, the psychic entity, puts forward on the surface....In each return to earth the Person, the Purusha, makes a new formation, builds a new personal quantum suitable for a new experience, for a new growth of its being." (Ibid) At death, the sheaths dissolve and only the essence of the past remain which may or may not be used in the next birth. The essence of a past personality remain as one personality among many personalities that belong to the same Person. From the subliminal poise it influences the new formation but does not change into a new personality. The new personality may be of a very contrary type of the past personality for some potentials may have been held back in past life to be worked out in the future.
Actually all the essence of the past personalities persist and the more they can be utilized and harmonised in the new birth, the more the veiled mental, vital and subtle-physical elements of the past personalities contribute to the new birth, the richer the new personality. Such a complex gathering of many personalities may indicate a very advanced state of individual progress when there is a strong central being (the Jivatman) that holds all these together. But this taking up of the past does not indicate a repetition of the past in a fresh incarnation but a completely new formation. Rebirth does not exist for the prolongation of an unchanging personality but "as a means for the evolution of the spiritual being in Nature". (Ibid, pg.849)
The popular idea of rebirth being governed by rewards and punishments and the issue of morality alone seems to be then flawed. The suffering of the good and the prosperity of the wicked does not necessarily indicate the past wickedness of the good or the past virtues of the sinner. It would appear that virtue is the main policy for any reasonable soul entering Nature. The psychic being keeps the essence of the memories of a life but it can be contested that these subtle memories have little or no value and are too intermittent to have any effect. (Ibid, pg.850)
Memory as a burden
Besides any persistent memory of past lives can be a huge burden to the new incarnation who has to move forward in life. It would lead to an unnecessary repetition of the past and would hinder the blossoming of new potentialities in a new life. Why do we not usually remember past lives? This is because it is not the mental learning of things which are at the heart of the matter but it is "a growth of the soul-personality and a growth of the nature" (Ibid, pg.851) that is of fundamental importance. In that process, memory has no value. The being grows by a subliminal assimilation of past essences and an output of future potentialities. "The law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a law of the cosmic Wisdom and serves, not disserves its evolutionary purpose". (Ibid)
Even in one's lifetime it is difficult to keep all the memories of life. How much more difficult it would be to retain the memories of past life in a new body with a new brain and a new personality! There is of course the subliminal or inner being who might retain memories of past life but it is not connected to the new surface personality that it forms. Though our surface being is formed from within us, it is not conscious of the connection. And yet there are fragmentary upsurges of past memories and few cases of exact memory in children. Finally if the inner being really develops and predominates the being, past-life memories may appear but these are usually impressionistic rather than being vivid and detailed. But Nature does not care about the past, on stuff which are on the process of exclusion but on the future. The past is kept behind a veil and used only "as an occult source of materials for the present and the future." (Ibid, pg.852)
The soul-personality
We thus have a new conception of the Person and Personality. It would be fallacious to expect the survival of an unchanging personality after death in a new body. The outer personality revolves around an "I" which is superficial, momentary and temporary, not worth of preservation unless it consents to change, to be luminously progressive by identifying with the secret Spirit or divinity within oneself. That secret entity within is the psychic being that is projected by the Jivatman within the centre of the being, that is the real Personality -the soul-personality within us which outgrows the life-span of the individual and its constant survival places our eternal Spirit in the matrix of Time.(Ibid, pg.853)
Survival of mind, life and body
But man remains dissatisfied with only the survival of the soul; he wants a survival of our mind, life and even of the body by magical, alchemic or scientific means. Sri Aurobindo points out that this aspiration can only succeed if one could powerfully individualise one's mind and identify with the mental Purusha and open oneself to the progressive action of the Infinite so that there is no need for the soul to dissolve the old form of mind. Or if one succeeds in the individualisation, integration and openness of the vital being, the life-part would similarly survive. The wall between the outer and the inner being would then break down and the permanent mental being and vital being from within could govern life. Our mind and life would survive without dissolution from birth to birth. They would be immortal and continuous in their sense of identity. "This would be evidently an immense victory of soul and mind and life over the Inconscience and the limitations of material Nature". (Ibid, pg.854)
But Sri Aurobindo strikes a caution. He comments, "But such a survival could only persist in the subtle body; the being would still have to discard its physical form, pass to other worlds and in its return put on a new body". (Ibid)
The awakened Mental Purusha and Vital Purusha, preserving the mind-sheath and life-sheath of the subtle body of the past birth would return in the new birth and keep the earlier characteristics, projecting them to the future. However the physical body could not be preserved unless the physical causes of decay and death are overcome. But Sri Aurobindo also mentions that were Science to be able to find ways for indefinite survival of the body, the soul could still abandon it and pass to a new incarnation as death is not merely a physical event but is a spiritual necessity for the evolution of a new being (vide Ibid, footnote).
The triple Immortality
However the physical being has to keep pace with the soul and the slow transformation of the mental into a spiritual existence. "This consummation of a triple immortality, --immortality of the nature completing the essential immortality of the Spirit and the psychic survival of death, -- might be the crown of rebirth and a momentous indication of the conquest of the material Inconscience and Ignorance even in the very foundation of reign of Matter. But the true immortality would still be the eternity of the Spirit; the physical survival could only be relative, terminable at will, a temporal sign of the Spirit's victory here over Death and Matter."
Date of Update:
30-Sep-26
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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