Book II – Chapter I – Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable

SYNOPSIS Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable We see an Inconscience or a total Nescience at the beginning of things. The foundation of this consciousness wears the appearance of a

Study Notes Introduction In this chapter Sri Aurobindo discusses the following questions:     Consciousness-Force is the leading factor at work in this universe. But the Consciousness turned into Nescience, absence

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 2      Moreover the knowledge gained is of phenomena, not of the reality of things or of the foundations of existence. Wherever our consciousness meets what

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 3      It is possible indeed to question the need of positing an Infinite which contains our formed universe, although this conception is imperatively demanded by

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 5      There is more to perplex us; for we see the original indeterminate Energy throwing out general determinates of itself,— we might equally in their

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 6 Contd…, Again the emergence of consciousness out of the Inconscient is a stumbling-block in the way of this theory; for it is a phenomenon which can

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 8      On that hypothesis, there must be behind the action of the material Energy a secret involved Consciousness, cosmic, infinite,building up through the action of

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 9      All the unexplained processes of Nature would find their meaning and their place if this hypothesis proved to be tenable. Energy seems to create

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 10 Contd…, The bodily instrument may even in some directions dominate its user; it may too by a force of habit suggest or create involuntary reactions of

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 11 Contd…, In order to discover the secret of Consciousness it would have to know itself and determine the reality of its own being and process; but

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 12 Contd…, But this conclusion is complicated by the fact that from another view-point our personal mind seems to be little more than a formation of universal

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 13      Overmind consciousness is such a state or principle beyond individual mind, beyond even universal mind in the Ignorance; it carries in itself a first

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 14      In Overmind, in all the higher ranges of the mind, we find recurring the dichotomy of a pure silent self without feature or qualities

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 15      But if the supreme Absolute is indeed a pure Indeterminable, then no creation, no manifestation, no universe is possible. And yet the universe exists.

Study Notes PARAGRAPH 16      Overmind, then, gives us no final and positive solution; it Is in a supramental cognition beyond it that we are left to seek for