Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 7 Contd…
This act of conscious union is that which is represented otherwise in dividing Mind obtusely, ignorantly, quite externally as contact in consciousness between divided beings and separate objects, and with us this contact in divided consciousness is primarily represented by the principle of sense. On this basis of sense, on this contact of union subject to division, the action of the thought-mind founds itself and prepares for the return to a higher principle of union in which division is made subject to unity and subordinate. Substance, then, as we know it, material substance, is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge.
EXPLANATION
This unity at the level of apprehending Supermind is otherwise represented by the dividing Mind externally as contact in consciousness between divided beings and separate objects. (Sri Aurobindo refers here the Overmind from which certain philosophies formulated their theory that Matter only exists as substantial appearance to the consciousness and that the one reality is Spirit or pure conscious Being – Ref. Para 5).
The divided consciousness is represented in us by the principle of sense. We have a sense- mind which receives inputs through senses. We have a thought- mind which forms thoughts based on the reception by the sense mind. The action of our thought-mind is founded on the basis of sense and on the basis of contact of union subject to division (apprehending unity in the III status of Supermind). It prepares for the return to a higher principle of union i.e., apprehending Supermind where division is subordinate principle to oneness.
Mind acting through sense contacts the conscious Being (Sat) in the form of substance. Mind itself is a movement of knowledge of the conscious Being (Sat).
PARAGRAPH 8
But Mind by its very nature tends to know and sense substance of conscious-being, not in its unity or totality but by the principle of division. It sees it, as it were, in infinitesimal points which it associates together in order to arrive at a totality, and into these view-points and associations cosmic Mind throws itself and dwells in them.
EXPLANATION
We know that Mind by its nature divides things into parts and analyses each part to arrive at the knowledge. It divides and totals it up. But the totality is not the synthetic whole. The substance of conscious-being (Sat) is a unity and totality that cannot be divided. But the Mind tends to know and sense substance of conscious-being by the principle of division. It sees the substance in infinitesimal points. It associates together these points to arrive at a totality. The cosmic Mind throws itself and dwells in these multiple view-points.
So dwelling, creative by its inherent force as the agent of Real-Idea, bound by its own nature to convert all its perceptions into energy of life, as the All-Existent converts all His self-aspectings into various energy of His creative Force of consciousness, cosmic Mind turns these, its multiple viewpoints of universal existence, into standpoints of universal Life; it turns them in Matter into forms of atomic being instinct with the life that forms them and governed by the mind and will that actuate the formation.
EXPLANATION
The cosmic Mind is the agent of Real-Idea (of Supermind), the executor of Divine Plan. In its own nature it converts all its perceptions into energy of life (Life-Force). In involution Supermind creates Mind, Mind creates Life and Life creates Matter. The All-Existent (Sat, the Divine) views Himself as energy of His creative Force of consciousness (Chit-shakti). In the same way the cosmic Mind turns its multiple viewpoints of universal existence into standpoints of universal Life. In Matter it turns them into forms of atomic being instinct with the life that forms them. They are governed by the mind and will that make the formation possible. For example, for any new creation three things are required – substance, force and idea.
At the same time, the atomic existences which it thus forms must by the very law of their being tend to associate themselves, to aggregate; and each of these aggregates also, instinct with the hidden life that forms and the hidden mind and will that actuate them, bears with it a fiction of a separated individual existence.
EXPLANATION
These atomic existences by their very nature tend to associate or aggregate themselves. Each of these aggregates is instinct with the hidden life that forms and the hidden mind and will that make the formation possible. Each unit bears with it a fiction of a separated individual existence.
Each such individual object or existence is supported, according as the mind in it is implicit or explicit, unmanifest or manifest, by its mechanical ego of force, in which the will-to-be is dumb and imprisoned but none the less powerful, or by its self-aware mental ego in which the will-to-be is liberated, conscious, separately active.
EXPLANATION
Each such individual existence has the mind in it either implicit and unmanifest (all existences below human level) or explicit and manifest (at the human level). When implicit, it is supported by its mechanical ego of force. In each of them the will-to-be is inactive and imprisoned and yet powerful. When explicit, it is supported by its self-aware mental ego in which the will-to-be is liberated, conscious, separately active.