In Book II, Cantos IV, V and VI he has used pronouns IT and ITS for LITTLE LIFE, and SHE and HER for GREATER LIFE. But in Canto VI, at some places I could not identify which NOUN he is referring to by that particular PRONOUN. Please guide me.
On page 179, a line begins:
“This greater life is enamoured of the Unseen”
Thereafter, in successive 13 lines he has used IT and ITS to explain further. Do these IT and ITS refer to “This greater life”, or they refer to some other NOUN previously used by him in the text?
Then on the same page there is a line:
“A child of heaven who never saw his home”
In successive four lines he has used IT and ITS for “a child of heaven”. I think this “child of heaven” also refers to “The Greater Life”.
Then there is a line:
“On every plane, this Greatness must create”
Thereafter Sri Aurobindo has used pronouns SHE and HER to refer to that “Greatness”.
Please clarify whether this “Greatness” refers to the Greater Life or some other entity. I think it has been used for the Greater Life. It is a bit confusing to me.
I shall be grateful for your clarification on above points.
Actually you have got all of them correct by tracing back to the passage and the connecting links.
‘It’ in the passage you mention beginning with “This greater life is enamoured of the Unseen” refers to the Greater Life. The child of heaven also refers to the Greater Life as it emerges in the cosmic play out of the higher vital worlds or the vital heavens. In that line Sri Aurobindo uses his because it is the child that is being substituted by the pronoun. Subsequently It again refers to the Greater Life.
Then the phrase ‘This Greatness must create’ again refers to the Greater Life but not impersonally but in terms of its power to create. Hence the feminine She is used. Here she and her refers to the power of greater life.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
