Book One: The Book of Beginnings

Aswapati seeks and discovers the Master plan of this universe, its occult cause and moving force, the far-off goal towards which creation moves. This knowledge is secret because we cannot find it through the mind or the senses but can discover it through other faculties and powers which have now awakened in Aswapati.

The great journey of life is the Purusha sailing through the fields of his experiences created by Nature. It is through this journey that he grows into his full stature. Sri Aurobindo gives us here the broad outline of this journey that the soul undertakes impelled by the currents and waves of nature.

Until the transformation takes place, human life will remain imperfect, beset with riddles, struggling on its road in the fields of Death. But with God and His transforming Touch, all can become beautiful and wonderful, as life should be, is meant to be, and must one day become. Thus we see the essential unity of the Lord and His Shakti as well as of the Creator and His Creation. This is the fundamental basis of transformation. Since the Divine has become this creation, therefore this creation must also become divine.

As our being evolves, as we grow in soul-power and soul-consciousness, the relation between Soul and Nature too begins to change and evolve. Slowly the soul begins to discover itself and realizes itself to be the master and lord of nature, Isa.

The Soul and Nature are two poises of One Truth. Indeed Prakriti is the power of the Purusha. She builds for the soul the instruments needed for their play and gives the experiences necessary for the growth and fullness of the evolving soul in creation. This evolving soul is a portion of the Jivatma sent down into the bounds of Time and Space for the replicating the truth of Iswara and Shakti here, in the conditions of matter and earthly life.

Having revealed to us the essential Unity of creation because of the One Divine Presence within it, Sri Aurobindo now reveals to us also the fundamental unity between the static and dynamic aspects of Creation, that is to say, between the Divine Reality behind it and the Divine Force that has gone into it.

Though creation appears to our senses as a number of separate objects hung in Space and connected through the play of Time, behind all its variations and multiplicity, there is the One. It is the One Reality that has become the Many. This is the great secret we are here to discover.

The Divine Shakti concealed in all things is the Source of all hope. However much our present ignorant nature may fumble and falter, She will lead creation eventually to its inevitable Divine Goal.

The Divine Grace is always with us through all the difficulties, struggle and pain that we encounter in our long evolutionary journey. It is there even when appearances and dark and we do not see it. This is the truth we must always hold within through all the long and difficult journey and the dark passages of life.

In the passage that follows we have a description of the upper pole of the ladder, the stair where the great Gods reside, the Overmind world that borders on the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo describes the relation these great and luminous beings have with our world, the mysterious and ill-understood way of their working, their effect and influence upon our humanity.

Essentially the Mind is a dividing consciousness that by its very nature cannot arrive at an Integral Truth. It is only by removing the dense veil of Ignorance and discovering the Divine Truth hidden in our hearts that we can rediscover the lost Unity.

The lines that follow give man supreme hope that whatever the appearances, the transformation is going to be. It is being prepared behind the veil and often the darkest hours are the one’s followed by the New Dawn that is bound to arrive.