Para and Apara Prakriti are simply two different modes of working of One Consciousness-Force. In its origin, it is the Conscious Power of the Divine, also called as the Shakti of the Ishwara. The knowledge in the Shakti or Paraprakriti does not act through the instrument of Reason. It acts on the basis of an inherent oneness that knows everything because it has become everything. It is somewhat like that operates behind all the processes of creation. It is supranational and intuitive, because it bypasses the processes that Reason uses, for example, observation, analysis, decision to act in one or another way and the action itself. Instead, it knows everything directly because that Power, the Divine Shakti, has built the worlds, supports it, sustains it, as well as destroys it. It knows everything by an identification.
Then, where do the so-called errors and accidents come in an action that should be perfect? It is here that the Apara Prakriti comes in, a delegate power that operates within the limits of the form built by the Paraprakriti. Compare it with the Master City Planner, the Chief organising powers that lay down the details and, the many limited power centres that emerge in the process. These limited power centres do not have the complete picture, just as a worker involved in a field does not know the reason for the decisions taken by the Chief Director. He may align with it, execute grudgingly or even resist the decision taken at the apex, thereby continuing to act according to its old habits and patterns. This lesser or lower working of the same Divine Intelligence and Power, now limited in the form, becomes Apara Prakriti.
Thereby comes a kind of twofold action of the One Divine Intelligence and Power called as Vidya (power of oneness) and Avidya (power that operates in division), or higher and lower Nature, or Supernature and ordinary working of Nature. The connecting links between the two, who mediate between the formless Divine Shakti, Vidyamayi Maya or Knowledge, and the limited knowledge and power operating within self-imposed limits, Avidyamayi Maya or Ignorance, are the four original manifestations of the Divine Shakti or the Divine Mother described by Sri Aurobindo in The Mother as Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati. They are cosmic powers that are aware of the Oneness as well as the multiplicity of forms.
We start with Avidya due to identification with the form and slowly, through conscious evolution conducted by the four cosmic powers, arrive at true knowledge, Vidya.
Both Vidya and Avidya, Knowledge and Ignorance serve their own unique purposes, like the bigger, comprehensive, total picture and the limited, smaller, partial picture. Of course, the Divine Shakti, or the Divine Mother as we call Her, is the original Power, the All-comprehending Wisdom, the Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence, can override and overwrite the limited workings of Avidya. This is what is often called as a miracle. But since Avidya has emerged from Vidya and serves a certain purpose, the change is not arbitrary, but itself follows a certain path and processes that Para Vidya has itself brought into existence. These are processes through which it links with Avidya. It is this connecting link that is important for the transforming change. That link or junction between the Para Prakriti and the Apara Prakriti is the Supramental Consciousness.
Reason, especially the discerning intellect, is the apex of Avidya (Ignorance). Hence, Nature as we know it belongs to the infrarational working. Though one can glimpse the suprarational Intelligence working from behind through instincts. Man with his reason is the apex of ignorance. Beyond it begin the workings of the suprarational Intelligence.
There is, of course, much more which we can take up later.
