Part Three. Writings from the Arya (1914 1921
Arguments to The Life Divine
Chapter XXVIII. The
Knowledge and the Ignorance[[Chapter XXVIII of The Life Divine as
published in the Arya was extensively revised in 1939 40, becoming the
present Book Two, Part I, Chapter VII.]]
ARGUMENT
The seven principles of existence are, then, one in
their reality, inseparable in their sevenfold action. They create the harmony of
the universe and there is no essential reason why this should not be a complete
harmony free from the element of discord, division and limitation. The Vedic
seers believed in such a creation and held its formation in man called
immortality to be the object of mans Godward effort. But this is difficult
for the human mind to accept, except in a beyond, because here the Inconscient
seems to be all and the conscient soul an accident or an alien unable fully to
realise itself. Here Ignorance seems to be the law. It is true that here we
start from the Inconscient and are governed by the Ignorance; we must therefore
examine this power of Consciousness and determine its operation and origin, not
accepting the refusal of some philosophies to consider the question because it
is insoluble; and first we must fix what we mean by the Ignorance. In the Veda
the Ignorance is the non-perceiving of the essential unity which is beyond mind
and of the essence and self-law of things in their original unity and actual
universality; it is a false knowledge based on division of the undivided,
insistence on the fragmentary and little and rejection of the vast and complete
view of things; it is the undivine Maya. The Vedantic distinction of Vidya and
Avidya made the opposition more trenchant, Vidya being the knowledge of unity,
Avidya the knowledge of multiplicity, but the knowledge of both was held to be
necessary for the Truth and the Immortality; the Ignorance was not a mere
falsehood and seeing of unreality. The One really becomes the Many. Later, the opposition was supposed to be rigid and
irreconcilable, the world unreal, a super-imposition of name and form on
featureless Unity by Mind, the Ignorance an absolute nescience of the Truth.
This we reject, because such dialectical oppositions, flawed at their source,
represent no actual reality of existence as a whole; there is no irreconcilable
opposition of dual principles, Ignorance creative, Knowledge destructive of
world-existence, but an essential unity. As pain is an effect of the universal
Delight produced in the recipient by incapacity, as incapacity is a disposition
of the universal Will-force, so ignorance is a particular action of the
universal Knowledge. Consciousness, which is Power, takes three poises; its
plenitude of the divine knowledge invariable in unity and multiplicity and
beyond; its dwelling upon apparent oppositions, the extreme being the
superficial appearance of complete nescience in the Inconscient; and a mediary
term or compromise between the two which is a superficial and partial emergence
of self-conscious knowledge, our own egoistic ignorance or false-knowledge. The
exact relations between these three have to be determined.
the Many. Later, the opposition was supposed to be rigid and
irreconcilable, the world unreal, a super-imposition of name and form on
featureless Unity by Mind, the Ignorance an absolute nescience of the Truth.
This we reject, because such dialectical oppositions, flawed at their source,
represent no actual reality of existence as a whole; there is no irreconcilable
opposition of dual principles, Ignorance creative, Knowledge destructive of
world-existence, but an essential unity. As pain is an effect of the universal
Delight produced in the recipient by incapacity, as incapacity is a disposition
of the universal Will-force, so ignorance is a particular action of the
universal Knowledge. Consciousness, which is Power, takes three poises; its
plenitude of the divine knowledge invariable in unity and multiplicity and
beyond; its dwelling upon apparent oppositions, the extreme being the
superficial appearance of complete nescience in the Inconscient; and a mediary
term or compromise between the two which is a superficial and partial emergence
of self-conscious knowledge, our own egoistic ignorance or false-knowledge. The
exact relations between these three have to be determined.