Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 19
This truth which we can see, though with difficulty and under considerable restrictions, even in the material world where the subtler and higher powers of being have to be excluded from our intellectual operations, becomes clearer and more powerful when we ascend in the scale. We see the truth of our classifications and distinctions, but also their limits.
EXPLANATION
In our practical dealing with the material objects we classify them, set them artificially apart and isolate them from the whole for separate analysis. We perceive the truth of our classifications and distinctions. At the same time we also see their limits. Essentiality, commonalty and individuality are together the eternal terms of existence.
We perceive this truth even in the material world though with difficulty and considerable restrictions. Because in the material world we exclude the subtler and higher powers of being from our intellectual operations. But this truth becomes clearer and more powerful when we ascend in the scale of higher consciousness.
All things, even while different, are yet one. For practical purposes plant, animal, man are different existences; yet when we look deeper we see that the plant is only an animal with an insufficient evolution of self-consciousness and dynamic force; the animal is man in the making; man himself is that animal and yet the something more of self-consciousness and dynamic power of consciousness that make him man; and yet again he is the something more which is contained and repressed in his being as the potentiality of the divine,—he is a god in the making.
EXPLANATION
We classify things in this world into different categories. Yet they are one. For practical considerations we classify plants, animals and man as different existences.
When we look deeper we realise that the plant is only an animal with an insufficient evolution of consciousness and dynamic force. The animal is man in the making. Man himself is that animal. But what makes man superior to animals is the something more of self-consciousness and dynamic power of consciousness.
Yet he is the something more which is contained and repressed in his being. That is the potentiality of the divine. He is a god in the making.
In each of these, plant, animal, man, god, the Eternal is there containing and repressing himself as it were in order to make a certain statement of his being. Each is the whole Eternal concealed. Man himself, who takes up all that went before him and transmutes it into the term of manhood, is the individual human being and yet he is all mankind, the universal man acting in the individual as a human personality. He is all and yet he is himself and unique. He is what he is, but he is also the past of all that he was and the potentiality of all that he is not.
EXPLANATION
In each of these different existences, plant, animal, man, god the Eternal is there. In each of these He is containing and repressing himself in order to make a certain expression of his being. The whole Eternal is concealed in each.
Man takes up all that went before him and transmutes (makes complete change of form) it into the term of manhood. He is the individual human being and yet he is all mankind. He is the universal man acting in the individual as a human personality. He represents the universal aspect and yet he is unique in himself. Man represents the present. But he also contains the past of all that he was. He contains the potentiality of all that he is not as well.
We cannot understand him if we look only at his present individuality, but we cannot understand him either if we look only at his commonalty, his general term of manhood, or go back by exclusion from both to an essentiality of his being in which his distinguishing manhood and his particularising individuality seem to disappear.
EXPLANATION
We cannot understand man by looking at his present individuality. Nor can we understand him only by looking at his commonalty. We cannot understand him either, by going back to an essentiality excluding both individuality and commonalty; in an essentiality of his being, his distinguishing manhood and his particularising individuality seem to disappear.
Each thing is the Absolute, all are that One, but in these three terms always the Absolute makes its statement of its developed self-existence. We are not, because of the essential unity, compelled to say that all God’s various action and workings are vain, worthless, unreal, phenomenal, illusory, and that the best and only rational or super-rational use we can make of our knowledge is to get away from them, dissolve our cosmic and individual existence into the essential being and get rid of all becoming as a futility for ever.
EXPLANATION
The Absolute is in each, all are that One, the Absolute. In the three terms of essentiality, commonalty and individuality the Absolute makes its expression of its developed self-existence.
There exists the essential unity as the fundamental aspect. It does not mean that all God’s various action and workings are vain, worthless, unreal, phenomenal, illusory.
If we subscribe to this view, then we would conclude that the best and only rational or super-rational use we can make of our knowledge is to get away from this illusory world; to dissolve our cosmic and individual existence into the essential being; to get rid of all the worldly activities a useless exercise for ever. This is an escapist attitude and would not help us to realise the truth of our existence.