Study Notes
SYNOPSIS (Contd…)
- Upanishad says life-force is the food of the body; the body is the food of the life-force. Life energy in us supplies the material by which the form is built up and constantly maintained and renewed. At the same time the life-energy is constantly using up the substantial form of itself which it thus creates and keeps in existence. The disease and decay set in and the process of disintegration starts when the balance between the two operations is imperfect.
- There is an increasing demand of the life-energy on the form always exceeding the original system of supply. This imbalance leads to many disorders opposed to the harmony and the length of maintenance of life. The life organised in the body is in constant struggle to sustain itself and it always attempts to master the forces with which it is in continuous interaction. At some stage it succumbs.
- The life in the body seeks infinite experience on a finite basis. The basis of very organisation of form limits the possibility of this experience of infinity. Therefore, the only possibility is, by dissolving it and seeking new forms.
- The soul, as we know, has limited itself by concentrating on the moment and field is driven to seek its infinity again by the principle of succession. It moves through successive fields, successive experiences or lives, successive accumulation of knowledge, capacity and enjoyment. To enable this process, change of form (by death)is essential.
- The finite living substance aspires for the sole immortality through eternal change of form. The finite mind involved in the living body aspires for sole infinity through eternal change of experience. This change of form cannot remain merely a constant renewal of same form-type that exists between our birth and death. The experiencing mind has to be thrown into new forms in new circumstances of time, place and environment.
- What makes this necessary and beneficial change appear terrible and undesirable to our human mind is the process of Death by dissolution, by eating of life by Life, the absence of freedom, the compulsion, the struggle, the pain, that subjection to something that appears to be Not-Self.
- Life here assumes material substance as its mould. This material substance is Being infinitely divided. It seeks infinitely to aggregate itself. The material existence of the universe is constituted between these two impulses of infinite division and infinite aggregation.
- The attempt of the individual, the living atom, to maintain and aggrandise itself is the whole sense of Desire. This Existence which is divided and individualised, is yet ever secretly conscious of its all-embracing, all-possessing infinity. The impulse to realise that secret consciousness is the urge of the cosmic Divine. It seeks to realise it in the physical world by feeding on the environment; by increasing oneself through the absorption of others or their possessions.
- Hunger in the subconscious vital parts becomes craving of Desire in the mentalised life. It becomes the Will stretching itself to achieve something in the intellectual life. This is the movement of desire which is caused by the self-limitation of the individual and persists till he becomes the master of himself.
- Desire, an intermediary movement, is essential for the divine Life-principle to bring about its self-affirmation in the universe. Desire is a dynamic movement and not be put to an end by inertia. It amounts to denial of the divine Life-principle and Its Will to realise to itself.
- Desire can end only by becoming the desire of the infinite instead of being the individual desire. In its progress it has to move from the type of a mutually eating hunger to type of a mutual giving with a joyous sacrifice of interchange. The law of Hunger must progressively give place to the law of Love.
- Death, Desire and Incapacity are three phenomena of Life. Desire is the impulse which comes directly from its law of Incapacity. The life-force is individualised within a form is limited and full of incapacity on account of two factors. One, it has to work against the mass of other surrounding individualised life forces. Secondly it is subject to control and denial by the infinite Life itself. Therefore, the third characteristic, namely the limitation of force and phenomenon of incapacity of individualised and divided Life happens.
- On the other hand, the impulse of self-enlargement and all-possession remains. It is not limited by its present force or capacity. Hence there is a gap between the impulse to possess and the force of possession. This gap leads to the birth of desire.
- If the individualised force were the energy of a mind free from ignorance it would not be affected by limitation and desire. When mind is one with the Supermind it would be a mind of divine knowledge. It would know the intention, scope and inevitable result of its every act. It would not desire or struggle to obtain something.
- The individualised life-force is the energy of the individualising and ignorant Mind separated from Supermind. Therefore, incapacity becomes inevitable to its relations in Life and in the nature of things. At the same time an infinite force cannot work in a finite environment. If that be so, such a force would work against the working of the divine and omniscient omnipotence.
- By the driving impulse of desire, the individually limited forces struggle to increase their capacity. This is the first law of Life. This struggle must rise into a mutual gain and increase among the co-existing forces. There is an influencing action from above and a responding action from below in which both gains. The clasp of struggle should be replaced by clasp of Love. Death, Desire and Strife are the trinity of divided living. They are the triple mask of the divine Life-principle in its first attempt of cosmic self-affirmation.