Study Notes
INDIVISIBLE
It is there in beings indivisible and as if divided.
Gita.13.16
The supreme Reality, Brahman is indeed One. But it is also the Many which people this universe. The Many, however, are not so many separate existences into which the One has divided himself. The Brahman is not an arithmetical one. Brahman is the essential Reality. He is indivisible. He is in each of the Many that he becomes, but not as a part but as a whole. The appearance of separate existences is illusive. This oneness is realisable once we go beyond the surface of things.
BRAHMAN
Brahman, the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinite.
Taittiriya Upanishad.2.1.1
Brahman, the sole Reality is the Truth that bases all existence, the Truth that remains when all passes away, the Truth from which all is derived, which holds all together despite the complex diversity, the Truth that passes beyond mental comprehension, the Truth of which all ignorance is an incomplete approximation, the Truth of which all falsehood is a deformation.
Brahman is not only the Truth but also the Knowledge of that Truth. And this Knowledge is not only the Knowledge of unitary Brahman but as well of the multiple Brahman that is the universe. This Brahman-Knowledge is not the knowledge arrived at by the mind though that is not excluded from the operation of the supreme Knowledge. This Knowledge is of many kinds, sense-knowledge, reasoning knowledge, ideational knowledge, intuitive knowledge, knowledge by identity. This last is the true knowledge which is gained in consciousness. This knowledge is Brahman itself, it is not a process leading to Brahman but Brahman revealing himself in the form of knowledge.
And Brahman is the Infinite. Though Brahman manifests himself in myriad finites he is not finite intrinsically. In his infinity he exceeds all the finite formations that issue from his Being and even in each of the finite forms he retains his innate infinity. The Consciousness that indwells the form is ever infinite.
Truth, Knowledge, Infinity are not attributes of Brahman. Brahman lends himself to be realised as Truth, as Knowledge, as the Infinite.
PURUSHA AND PRAKRITI
Know Purusha and Prakriti to be both eternal without beginning.
Gita.13.19
Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious-Being and Nature, are not some entities that come into existence with the birth of this creation and end with this creation. They are not creatures of Time as this world appears to be. They are eternal. For they are two aspects of Brahman who is the eternal. When Brahman manifests, he moves into the poise of the Purusha, the presiding Being, and into the poise of the Prakriti, the executive power. Both of them serve to fulfil the intention of Brahman in projecting this manifestation from out of his vast Being. Their interaction provides the axis on which the entire movement turns. Even when the manifestation is withdrawn, the Purusha and Prakriti do not cease to be. They stay. The Purusha inheres in brahman as the Existent and Prakriti inheres Min Brahman as Conscious Force, chit-shakti.
MAYA
One must know Maya as Prakriti and the Master of Maya as the great Lord of all.
Swetaswatara Upanishad.4.10
Maya is no power of illusion which foists this world of multiplicity on the pure Being of Brahman. Maya is a power of Brahman. It is a power that is conceptually creative. What Brahman intends to manifest, Maya casts into shape. It conceives the Idea of Brahman as it arises and casts it into the movement of formation. In its execution of the Will of the Supreme it is his Prakriti. She is no independent power whose origin is a mystery. Maya is a power of the creative Godhead. The Master of Maya is indeed the Lord of all existences. Maya forms what the Lord wills. Maya is Nature and the wielder of this Nature is the Supreme Being. Both are the same Reality in two poises.
ONE GODHEAD
It is the might of the Godhead in the world that turns the wheel of Brahman. Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the supreme Godhead above all godheads. Supreme too is his Shakti and manifold the natural working of her knowledge and her force. One Godhead, occult in all beings, the inner Self of all beings, the all-pervading, absolute without qualities, the overseer of all actions, the witness, the knower.
Swetaswatara Upanishad.6.1,7,8,11
This world movement turns on the Wheel of Brahman. And this Wheel is operated upon by the Power, the irresistible Might of that Godhead. All moves according to the Will of this supreme Lord of all the lords that preside over the workings of the million forces, the supreme Godhead from whom are derived the various godheads that rule their respective domains. Know this supreme Godhead and you will know everything else.
Like him his Shakti, the inalienable Power, is also supreme. Nothing can go against her workings which whether in the realm of knowledge or of force, are manifold, multiple in their processes. Her workings are spontaneous and natural to every situation.
This supreme Godhead is not all above, overseeing the world movement. He is the Indweller who governs from within, the Self who supports from within. He is One but he is also the Many; he pervades all. He holds all qualities but he is also above all of them, the absolute beyond. He presides over all actions; but at the same time he stands aloof and witnesses all, uninvolved. And always he is the knower of all because he is, indeed, the all.
(Source: Shri M.P.Pandit: Legends in The Life Divine: p.103-108:Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram)
PARAGRAPH 1
THERE is then a supreme Reality eternal, absolute and infinite. Because it is absolute and infinite, it is in its essence indeterminable. It is indefinable and inconceivable by finite and defining Mind; it is ineffable by a mind-created speech; it is describable neither by our negations, neti neti,— for we cannot limit it by saying it is not this, it is not that,— nor by our affirmations, for we cannot fix it by saying it is this, it is that, iti iti.
EXPLANATION
The supreme Reality is eternal, absolute and infinite. Therefore, in its essence it is indeterminable. Our Mind is a finite instrument which always tries to define an object or a phenomenon. We can define and mentally conceive something only when it is finite. Therefore the Absolute is indefinable and inconceivable by our finite Mind.
It is our mind that creates our speech. Therefore it is inexpressible by our speech. An ascetic rejects everything that he comes across in this material world saying, ‘this is not divine’, neti neti (I am not the body, mind and intellect). It is indescribable neither by our negations nor by our affirmations, ‘it is that’ iti, iti.
And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self-evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable; for that spiritual being is in its essence and its original and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence.
EXPLANATION
The Divine is unknowable by our mind. Yet it is not altogether and in every way unknowable. It is inexpressible, yet it is self-evident to itself. It is self-evident to a knowledge by identity. The spiritual being in us must be capable of this knowledge by identity. Because the spiritual being is in its essence and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence.
PARAGRAPH 2
But although thus indeterminable to Mind, because of its absoluteness and infinity, we discover that this Supreme and Eternal Infinite determines itself to our consciousness in the universe by real and fundamental truths of its being which are beyond the universe and in it and are the very foundation of its existence. These truths present themselves to our conceptual cognition as the fundamental aspects in which we see and experience the omnipresent Reality.
EXPLANATION
Although the Divine is indeterminable to Mind, the Supreme and Eternal Infinite makes itself known to our consciousness in the universe by real and fundamental truths of its being. These fundamental truths are beyond the universe and in the universe and are the very foundation of its existence. We become aware of these truths as the fundamental aspects in which we see and experience the omnipresent Reality. The fundamental aspects are Self, Conscious Being or Spirit and God, the Divine Being. In other words they are called Atman, Purusha, Ishwara.
In themselves they are seized directly, not by intellectual understanding but by a spiritual intuition, a spiritual experience in the very substance of our consciousness; but they can also be caught at in conception by a large and plastic idea and can be expressed in some sort by a plastic speech which does not insist too much on rigid definition or limit the wideness and subtlety of the idea. In order to express this experience or this idea with any nearness a language has to be created which is at once intuitively metaphysical and revealingly poetic, admitting significant and living images as the vehicle of a close, suggestive and vivid indication,—a language such as we find hammered out into a subtle and pregnant massiveness in the Veda and the Upanishads.
EXPLANATION
The Divine is not knowable by our mind nor can we know it by our intellect. But the Divine can be experienced by a spiritual intuition. It is a spiritual experience in the very substance of our consciousness.
Yet the Divine can be conceived by a large and plastic idea and not by rigid formulas. It can be expressed in a plastic speech which does not depend on rigid definition or limit the wideness and subtlety of the idea.
To express this idea with any nearness to its truth a language has to be created. This language should be at once metaphysical (relating to the worlds beyond this physical world) and revealingly poetic (for example, Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri). It should admit significant and living images as the vehicle of a close, suggestive and vivid indication. The language should be such as we find in Veda and the Upanishads. The language of Veda and the Upanishads are refined into subtle expressions and yet they carry a pregnant massiveness in them. (We know that the English language has acquired a new consciousness ever since Sri Aurobindo started using it).