AT THE FEET OF THE MOTHER
Ask Alok da

Based on chapters 1, 2, and 3 of The Life Divine, I was wondering how Sri Aurobindo comes to the conclusion that an omnipresent reality exists and that only this reality explains the universe. ๐ŸŒŒ๐Ÿ™‚๐Ÿ™๐Ÿป๐Ÿชท[…]

How does he combine the logic of an undying human aspiration, the materialistic denial of the spirit and the ascetic’s refusal of the world to conclude that the real truth points to an omnipresent reality?

I hope I am making sense. I am grateful to the Lord for bringing down this heavenly book on earth, a supreme gift to the intellect and soul.

The logic trail is as follows. Human beings, cutting across the differences in time, space and education, seek or aspire for some ultimate of freedom,ย knowledge, truth, power, joy. The seeking is universal and hence suggestive of these things (we seek) hidden somewhere.ย 

The materialist searches for the same in the depths of the only thing he is aware of through his senses, – the material world. In the process of this ultimate Reality from which his aspiration has sprung up, he plunges into matter, denying the Spirit as a hallucination. 

The ascetic, on the other hand, takes the thread of his subjective aspiration and takes it to the other extreme wherein the ascetic denies the whole world as an illusion.ย 

The reconciliation is to be found in the cosmic consciousness. The cosmic consciousness doesn’t deny or cancel anything. It accepts both the subjective side of our experience, – the spiritual – as well as the sensory or the objective side,- the material. They are, as it were two sides of one coin, the coin being the Omnipresent Reality.ย 

In the cosmic consciousness, the two appear as two sides of One Reality. Beyond the cosmic consciousness too, we can reconcile them using the same analogy. The cosmos, like the coin, is an objectivisation of something that transcends it. Before objectivising, we use the word Non-being just as we can use the abstract term value for currency without qualifying or specifying it. The world of values has not yet come into existence. It has not yet been conceived, like the mother who has not conceived the child. When she does conceive, the mother does not become someone else. It is just that the woman in her, the feminine energy has given birth. What is born is at once objective material as well as a subjective conceptual reality. Is the woman before her conception different from the woman who conceives and gives birth? Fundamentally no. That is how the Transcendent Reality is one with the cosmic and through the cosmic extends into the individual, joining the subjective spiritual and the materially physical.ย 

Hope this helps.

Affectionately,

Alok Da 

Share thisโ€ฆ

Related Posts

The CJP protest has helped me understand what I should NOT do/be as a Bharatiya. I was having a serious conversation with myself, thinking and talking aloud, about Geopolitics. I was asking myself how I recognise the people who support the ‘leftist’ narrative. ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ“š๐Ÿ™๐Ÿผ […]

There is no need to delve into knowledge of geo-politics? It is one profession among many. No one is expected to learn about every profession, isn’t it? What one must know is about the nation and the people where one lives, their roots, thought, attitudes, especially something about the culture, the deepest tendencies, the highest …

Read More >

The Mother explained that in old age, though consciousness remains intact, the physical instrument may falter like a piano with missing strings, limiting its outward expression. What are simple, practical ways to infuse our body, mind, and vital with Consciousness throughout life? ๐ŸŒฟ๐Ÿง˜๐Ÿ™๐Ÿผ[…]

That is why Sri Aurobindo and The Mother speak of a higher and lower Perfection. The higher Perfection refers to the soul’s Perfection, the spiritual growth from a state of Ignorance to a state of Truth and Vastness. The lower Perfection is the Perfection of the instrumental nature, of the mind, heart, life and body, to develop them through …

Read More >

Dear Sir, why is that the ego anti-divine? Why does it is not naturally surrenders to the divine? Why is there division and a distance from the divine? Why does it have to die ultimately for the complete spiritualization? ๐Ÿชž๐ŸŒฑ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿผ

Ego is neither Divine nor anti-Divine. It is a part of human nature whose purpose is to create the sense of individuality. Individuality is a necessary element in human evolution. Its purpose is to create the sense of freewill, within certain limits of course. Freewill in this context simply means that the individual must chose from a number of forces impacting upon the person. The choices may be aligned to our deeper truth, swabhava and swadharma, …

Read More >