SYNOPSIS
THE ETERNAL AND THE INDIVIDUAL
- There is Divine living within each individual and our individual consciousness is a vehicle of progressive evolutionary manifestation. Yet we have difficulty in admitting the fact that the individual is in any sense eternal and that individuality can persist even after an individual attains liberation by unity with the Divine and self-knowledge.
- With our normal mind we find difficulties when faced with the experience of the cosmic unity and transcendental unity by the individual. The first difficulty for the reason is that it always identifies the individual self with ego. Ego is nothing fundamentally real in itself. It is a practical construction of consciousness around which all the activities of our Nature are centered.
- Two powers, Person (the Purusha) and his world-material are both necessary for our present experience of individuality. If the Purusha ceases to exist, then the constructed individuality would also cease to exist. On the other hand if the world-being were no longer there, then also the individualisation would cease.
- In its conscious extension of itself the Purusha exceeds the primary experience of an individualised consciousness. Thereby it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited soul-being. The individual ceases to be the self-limiting ego. This unity with the world-being is the consciousness of a Self which extends itself universally and at the same time is present individually through individual Purusha.
- There are two aspects of the Self. One is its aspect of being (Sat) which is represented by the unity. The other is the power of its being (Chit-shakti) which is constantly displayed by the cosmic differentiation and the multiple individuality.
- We can concentrate exclusively on the unity (with the Divine) aspect. By doing so, we are only diminishing the scope of the unity. Here we accept the Divine being but deny our role in the power and delight and infinite consciousness of the Divine being.
- There is differentiation of experience in the unity and in the individual action. The individual exists even after the unity with the Divine. Yet he exceeds the little separative ego. The universal also exists and is embraced by the individual but it does not absorb and abolish all individual differentiation.
- We may prefer the absorption in a pure exclusive unity. Or we may escape into a supracosmic transcendence. But in the spiritual truth of the Divine Existence there is no compelling reason for us in not participating in this large possession and bliss of His universal being. In fact that is the fulfilment of our individuality.
- It is the Self that becomes the individual and it is the Self that becomes the universe. Therefore the cosmic and the individual are always related and mutually dependent and included in their practical relation.
- But this truth is beyond the comprehension of our normal reason which relies on words. The words are created by mind, and are given values by our limited intellect.
- This mutual inclusion is spiritual and psychological and not physical and is the translation of these two forms into a unifying spiritual experience.
- That is, the liberated soul comes into union with this Transcendent Self. In that union, it has the self-experience of itself and cosmos. It is translated psychologically into a mutual inclusion and a persistence existence of both in a divine union. It is at once a oneness and a fusion and an embrace.
- We cannot approach the higher truths with our normal experience arrived at by our reason. By individual we mean an individualisation of mental, vital, physical being separate from all other beings. By doing so, we conceive of an individualisation which is incapable of unity with other beings by its very individuality.
- It is therefore necessary to insist that by the true individual we mean not a separate mental, vital and physical being and not even the soul or individual self. What we mean by true individual is a conscious power of being of the Eternal, always existing by unity, always capable of mutuality.
- We are describing certain primary relations of the Absolute. Our mind can understand them only if we see that the Transcendent, the individual, the cosmic being are the eternal powers of consciousness of an absolute existence.
- Normal mind sees God, the individual and the cosmos as three different actualities without any relations between them. The human reason makes an unbridgeable gulf between the Absolute and the relative. This is because we mean by the term Absolute something greater than ourselves and the cosmos.
- Everything that is relative in the universe exists by the Absolute and that the Absolute has freedom from all relatives. But our mind has the habit of making stark oppositions. Our mind cannot grasp the co-existence of the infinite and the finite which is perfectly rational for the supermind. It cannot seize the link between the unconditioned (Absolute) and the conditioned (relative). Our intellect sees them as opposites.
- The Vedic Rishis though spoke of Brahman negatively, neti, neti, yet they took care to speak of it positively also, iti, iti (it is this, it is that, it is all). To limit the Brahman either by positive or negative definitions was to fall away from its truth.
- This existence of negative does not make its corresponding positive a non-existent or an unreality. It only signifies that the positive alone is not a complete state of the truth of things; nor is it the positive’s own truth. The positive and the negative are not separate, existing side by side. They exist in relation to each other; they exist by each other. The negative and the positive complete each other.
- We can then go into the less subtle order of truths: the transcendent and the cosmic, the universal and the individual. Here each member of these pairs is contained in its opposite.
- We can take up the transcendent and the cosmic. The cosmic contains in all itself and in each thing in it the complete in-dwelling presence of the transcendent. The transcendent contains, manifests, constitutes the cosmos.
• Our mind operates by the law of contradictions in dealing with the practical aspects of life. The law of contradictions represents a strongly dynamic truth of existence in its practical workings. It is more relating to the outward form of things and this law is strongest in the domain of matter, the gross forms. This law becomes less and less binding as we go upward in the scale and climb on the more subtle rungs of the ladder of being. - In our practical dealing with the material objects we classify them, set them artificially apart and isolate them from the whole for separate analysis. This isolation helps us in studying the object individually and is necessary for first knowledge.
- If we limit our knowledge with the distinctions alone such knowledge will have only restricted applications. But the deeper knowledge of the essence of all material things reconciles distinctions in the unity behind all variations. By that, the knowledge of distinctions arrives at its greatest truth and effective use.
• There is an essential aspect (transcendent), commonalty (cosmic) aspect and an individual aspect. Commonalty and individuality are true and eternal powers of the essentiality which transcends both. The three together are the eternal terms of existence. - 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.
- In order to understand our actions and nature we have to rise above them. We must get to some sense of the Absolute and yet look at its workings in all the manifested relativities. Each action should not be looked at in isolation but in relation to all and in relation to the Absolute which exceeds and reconciles them all.
- Our human view is partial, superficial and limited to a few apparent facts and appearances. We can know the true purpose in things only by getting to the divine view of things. Behind all relatives there is Absolute which gives them the justification for their existence. No particular act or arrangement is by itself absolute justice. Behind all acts and arrangements there is something absolute which we call justice.
- We cannot reconcile the contradiction between the Absolute and the relative by taking refuge in our concept of Time. The first source and the primary relations (with the Absolute) lie beyond our mental divisions of Time, in the divine timelessness. Or they lie in the eternal Time of which our divisions and successions are only figures in a mental experience.
- The transcendent, the universal and the individual are the three terms of the one existence. The human being represents on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual. It is the Man who alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manfestation. He is the crucial link between the Ignorance and the Knowledge.
- It is this capacity of the individual which makes the working out of the divine self-manfestation through him possible. The existence of the individual is not an error in some self of the Absolute.
- It is in the individual and in the universe themselves, in their transformation but also their persistence and perfect relations the ultimate purpose of the divine play must be fulfilled. It cannot be done by the individual dissolving himself or by the universe dissolving itself.
- Otherwise there would be no reason for the existence of the individual and the universe. The possibility of the Divine’s unfolding in the individual is the secret of the problem. The presence of the individual and the intention of divine-unfolding are the key to the world of Knowledge-Ignorance.