Part Three. Writings from the Arya (1914 – 1921
Arguments to The Life Divine
Appendix I. Chapter I. The
Human Aspiration[[In December 1940 Sri Aurobindo wrote an “Argument in Brief”
and a shorter summary of Book One, Chapter I of the revised Life Divine.
Around the same time he drafted a summary of Book One, Chapter XXIV. These
summaries, similar to the “arguments” published in the Arya, are
reproduced here from his manuscripts.]]
Argument in Brief
A search for God, (for a spiritual or divine Reality
within oneself and behind, above or within the phenomenon of existence,) for
perfection, for freedom, for an absolute Truth and Bliss, for immortality has
been the persistent preoccupation of the highest human thought since the
earliest times. This preoccupation seems to be a perpetual element in man’s
nature; for it survives the longest periods of scepticism.
This aspiration is in contradiction with his present
existence and normal experience of himself which is that of a mortal being full
of imperfections, ego-ridden, largely animal, subject to transitory joys and
much pain and suffering, bound by mechanical necessity. But the direct
contradiction between what he is and what he seeks to be need not be a final
argument against the validity of his aspiration. For such contradictions are
part of Nature’s general method; the aspiration may be realisable either by a
revolutionary individual effort or by an evolutionary general progress.
The problems of existence are problems of harmony.
Discords and disorder of the materials, oppositions, demand a solution by
accordance, by the discovery of a harmony. Thus the accordance of an inanimation
and inertia in a containing Matter and the active indwelling stress of Life is
Nature’s first problem, its initial difficulty; its perfect solution would be
immortality in a material body. The accordance of an unconscious Matter and an unconscious or half-conscious Life with a conscious Mind and Will
is her second problem; the possession of a direct and perfect instrumentation of
knowledge in a living body would be its complete solution. The accordance of a
mortal mind, life and body with a secretly indwelling immortal spirit is the
final problem; the spiritualisation or divinisation of mind, life and body, a
divine life, would be the perfect solution. The search after these solutions by
the human being is not irrational; it is rather the very effort and striving of
Nature within him.
Life appears in Matter, Mind in Life because they are
already there. Matter is a form of veiled Life; Life a form of veiled Mind; Mind
may well be a form and veil of a higher power, the Spirit, which is supramental
in its nature. Nature has implanted an impulse towards life in certain forms of
Matter and evolves it there, a similar evolutionary impulse towards mind in
certain forms of life, an impulse in certain minds towards what is beyond Mind,
towards the unveiling of Spirit, the evolution of a spiritual being. Each
impulse justifies itself by the creation of the necessary organs and faculties.
There is therefore no reason to put a limit to
evolutionary possibility by taking our present organisation or status of
existence as final. The animal is a laboratory in which Nature has worked out
man; man may very well be a laboratory in which she wills to work out superman,
to disclose the soul as a divine being, to evolve a divine nature.
an unconscious or half-conscious Life with a conscious Mind and Will
is her second problem; the possession of a direct and perfect instrumentation of
knowledge in a living body would be its complete solution. The accordance of a
mortal mind, life and body with a secretly indwelling immortal spirit is the
final problem; the spiritualisation or divinisation of mind, life and body, a
divine life, would be the perfect solution. The search after these solutions by
the human being is not irrational; it is rather the very effort and striving of
Nature within him.