Canto V: The Godheads of the Little Life

Life starts its journey upon earth in a small insignificant way. It lives surrounded by darkness and shuts itself to Light and all that is greater and high. This is a first infant step that life takes in its stupendous journey, a step whose far end is the Life Divine.

The first requirement for this inevitable transformation is the ascension of consciousness from its mind bound state to the higher spiritual realms. It means the emergence of an intuitive mind and heart in place of the labouring reason and the vital-animal emotions.

This is the secret plan and it shall be fulfilled when greater and greater powers of life descend upon earth, eventually the very Highest comes down in response to the call and cry of life. This is not just a prophesy but an promise of the Lord.

Though life, on the surface is full of ignorance, error and suffering, deep within us there is a luminous, happy core. Slowly the Light of the soul works to bring its radiance to the surface and fill our outer life with the joy and luminous Force of the Divine.

The Divine Presence dwells in all things. It is His touch that makes all things alive and conscious. It is His secret Breath that drives creation unknowingly towards its great goal. It is His bliss that supports all things from behind. It is His Love that leans down to save this universe.

There is a mystery that acts behind this small life that has emerged upon our globe. Even when all seems dark and ugly and small, there is always this Divine Presence supporting us from behind, His joy sustaining us from within, His Peace and Light.

There is however a greater view of self and world, a view that neither Science nor Religion offers. Sri Aurobindo gives the direction towards the broader and deeper vision of the Spirit that is yet to emerge in man.

When we look at humanity in the light of a scientific understanding while we still labour in Ignorance, we are bound to get disillusioned. It is a life without purpose, a meaningless existence that has somehow evolved out of the worm while playing with the mud of earth.

Creation, viewed strictly from a material standpoint, appears in the last analysis as itself a strange illusion conjured by the senses and mind. Thus Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the limitations of the present purely materialistic point of view of the self and world.