Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 6
It follows that in this surface or desire-soul there is no true soul-life, but a psychic deformation and wrong reception of the touch of things. The malady of the world is that the individual cannot find his real soul, and the root-cause of this malady is again that he cannot meet in his embrace of things outward the real soul of the world in which he lives. He seeks to find there the essence of being, the essence of power, the essence of conscious-existence, the essence of delight, but receives instead a crowd of contradictory touches and impressions. If he could find that essence, he would find also the one universal being, power, conscious existence and delight even in this throng of touches and impressions; the contradictions of what seems would be reconciled in the unity and harmony of the Truth that reaches out to us in these contacts.
EXPLANATION
Man lives in his surface or desire soul. Therefore, he does not live in his true soul-life. What he experiences through his desire soul is a psychic deformation and a wrong reception of the touch of things. Whatever we perceive externally through our senses we receive them in the wrong way.
The malady affecting the individual is that he cannot find his real soul. In his outward contacts he is unable to meet the real soul of the world (Cosmic Soul) in which he lives. This is the root cause of his malady. Man seeks to find the essence of being (Sat), the essence of power (Chit-shakti), the essence of conscious-existence (Chit) and the essence of delight (Ananda). Instead, what he receives are the opposite impressions (opposites of Sachchidananda)
If man could find that essence in his contacts, he would also find the one universal being, power, conscious existence and delight (Sachchidananda) even in his innumerable contacts and touches in the world. Whatever contradictions he faces would be reconciled in the unity and harmony of the Truth (Sachchidananda) that emerges from these contacts.
At the same time he would find his own true soul and through it his self, because the true soul is his self’s delegate and his self and the self of the world are one. But this he cannot do because of the egoistic ignorance in the mind of thought, the heart of emotion, the sense which responds to the touch of things not by a courageous and whole-hearted embrace of the world, but by a flux of reachings and shrinkings, cautious approaches or eager rushes and sullen or discontented or panic or angry recoils according as the touch pleases or displeases, comforts or alarms, satisfies or dissatisfies. It is the desire-soul that by its wrong reception of life becomes the cause of a triple misinterpretation of the rasa, the delight in things, so that, instead of figuring the pure essential joy of being, it comes rendered unequally into the three terms of pleasure, pain and indifference.
EXPLANATION
When man finds the essence (Sachchidananda) in his contacts with the world he would at the same time find his own true soul. Through his own soul he would find his self. Because his true soul is his self’s delegate. His self and the self of the world are one.
(This soul as we have noted before is not to be confused with the self. The self is something behind, immutable, unchanging, not born, not involved in the movement of life and death. This self puts forward a delegate or a deputy, of itself in the movement of evolution, movement of growth and progress and that is the soul, the psychic. It is the soul which really goes on drawing delight from our experience. But the desire soul being driven by desires, limited by ego, can respond to any experience in terms of pleasure or pain or indifference but never as delight in itself – Shri M.P.Pandit: Talks on The Life Divine: p. 145)
What prevents him from doing so, is his egoistic ignorance in the mind of thought, the emotional vital and the sense that responds to the contacts. He does not meet his contacts in the world by a courageous and whole-hearted embrace. But he meets them with caution and often shrinks from them. He reaches them with eager rushes. But he returns discontented with panic or angry recoils in accordance with the touch that pleases or displeases, comforts or alarms or satisfies or dissatisfies him.
What causes this wrong reception of life is his desire-soul. It is the cause of a triple misinterpretation of the rasa, the delight in things. It does not find the pure essential joy of being. Instead, the delight (ananda) is presented unequally into the three terms of pleasure, pain and indifference.
PARAGRAPH 7
We have seen, when we considered the Delight of Existence in its relations to the world, that there is no absoluteness or essential validity in our standards of pleasure and pain and indifference, that they are entirely determined by the subjectivity of the receiving consciousness and that the degree of either pleasure and pain can be heightened to a maximum or depressed to a minimum or even effaced entirely in its apparent nature. Pleasure can become pain or pain pleasure because in their secret reality they are the same thing differently reproduced in the sensations and emotions. Indifference is either the inattention of the surface desire-soul in its mind, sensations, emotions and cravings to the rasa of things, or its incapacity to receive and respond to it, or its refusal to give any surface response or, again, its driving and crushing down of the pleasure or the pain by the will into the neutral tint of unacceptance. In all these cases what happens is that either there is a positive refusal or a negative unreadiness or incapacity to render or in any way represent positively on the surface something that is yet subliminally active.
EXPLANATION
(Sri Aurobindo here refers to Chapter XII – The Delight of Existence: The Solution. Let us go through the salient points mentioned in the paragraph:
Why do we react to external events with the triple vibration of pleasure, pain and indifference? This is our superficial response. It is an arrangement and result of our imperfect evolution. These responses have no absoluteness, no finality. It is not necessary that we should respond with pain or pleasure to particular stimulus. Our reactions are created by mere habit.
Our nature has formed certain habits by which we respond to a particular contact with pleasure, to some other with pain and to some other without any reaction. It is because that is the constant relation the recipient (we) has established with the contact. It is quite within our capacity to return an opposite response of pain where there used to be pleasure and pleasure where there used to be pain. Pain and pleasure are interchangeable and can replace each other in separate individuals or in the same individual at different times. These can be maximised or can be entirely eliminated.
Is it necessary that we should respond to contacts only with the three modes of pleasure, pain and neutrality? Sri Aurobindo says it is not so. We have within us the true Bliss-Self. The constant experience of this true self is its inseparable delight. Therefore, it is within our capacity to respond to our contacts (whether they are pleasant or unpleasant) with this delight that is within us.
This is the greater victory for us over our own selves. We are in a more complete and deeper possession of ourselves. This is a better reaction than the glad and detached acceptance of our habitual surface reactions into our selves.)
Sri Aurobindo says pleasure can become pain or pain can become pleasure because in their secret reality they are the same thing i.e the delight. They are only differently reproduced in the sensations and emotions. How we react to our external events depends entirely on our receiving consciousness.
(Even when the desire soul receives an experience as pain, painful, it is registered inside by the true soul as an experience of delight. That is why whatever be the reaction of our external being, the inner soul goes on drawing the sap of each experience in terms of delight and grows thereby – Shri M.P.Pandit – Talks of The Life Divine – p. 146)
Sometimes we react neither with pain nor with pleasure. We are indifferent to certain events. It denotes the incapacity of the individual to respond appropriately. Sri Aurobindo says indifference is the inattention of the surface desire-soul in its mind, sensations and emotions to the rasa of things. Or it is because of the incapacity of the desire soul to receive and respond to the rasa of things. Or it refuses to give any surface response. Or it is possible by the will power to suppress the pleasure and pain into a state of neutral non-acceptance. In all these cases of neutral indifference, the inner response which is always positive, which is ever present does not come out on the surface or is not allowed to come out on the surface. We refuse to react. Or there is a negative unreadiness or incapacity to represent in any way positively something that is yet subliminally active.
PARAGRAPH 8
For, as we now know by psychological observation and experiment that the subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches of things which the surface mind ignores, so also we shall find that the subliminal soul responds to the rasa, or essence in experience, of these things which the surface desire-soul rejects by distaste and refusal or ignores by neutral unacceptance. Self-knowledge is impossible unless we go behind our surface existence, which is a mere result of selective outer experiences, an imperfect sounding-board or a hasty, incompetent and fragmentary translation of a little out of the much that we are, — unless we go behind this and send down our plummet into the subconscient and open ourself to the superconscient so as to know their relation to our surface being. For between these three things our existence moves and finds in them its totality.
EXPLANATION
We are exposed to the external contacts through our surface mind. Most of the experiences received through such contacts are ignored by our surface mind. But our subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches of things.
Similarly, our surface desire-soul rejects by dislike or refusal or ignores by neutral indifference, the rasa or essence in experience which it comes across in its dealings in life. But our subliminal soul (psychic being) responds to them. Our surface existence is the mere result of selective outer experiences. Whatever it reveals to us is only an imperfect, a hasty and a part revelation of the little of what constitutes our total self. Because the individual in his total self contains the universe in him.
Self-knowledge is impossible unless we go behind our surface existence. We should plunge deep into the subconscient and open ourself to the superconscient. Only then can we know their relation to our surface being. Our existence moves between our surface, subconscient and superconscient. Our existence finds its totality only in all these three things and not in our surface consciousness alone.