Canto VI: The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life

Though the larger vital worlds are endowed with much more power and possibilities than we can imagine upon earth, yet there is something crucial missing there. Though large in scope, powerful in action, yet it lacks oneness and hence it is still a world of ignorance.

Unlike the physical world, the vital worlds and its beings are not closed containers. They can readily and rapidly diffuse and melt and change from one to the other.

These are some of the characteristics of the vital world: expansion, taste of the extremes, seeking for power and joy. The larger vital, the greater life grows through these things towards its great goal.

We see here a description of the Intermediate Zone through which the aspirants to the beyond must pass. It is a realm that can easily confuse the seeker who can mistake ‘extreme’ of things for Truth and believe himself to be waging a just and righteous war while all the time labouring in the law of ignorance. Yet this illusion may provide a foothold for further ascension if one follows the lead of the Ideal and keeps the aspiration for Truth intact.

The beings of this greater life are wider in their consciousness and have the ring of a greater vision and power around them than ordinary human life. The circle of their influence is large and the sphere of their action extends beyond their little personal life.

A greater life awaits us beyond our struggling everyday life of dead routine and common acts. Though not yet Divine, it reflects some touch of divinity and awakens us to the higher truths above.

This higher vital world is stirred by profound energies and forces sublime that draw their impulsion from some deep source. Yet it is a reflected Truth, not the One original Reality and Power.

In this realm we find life turning towards higher and greater things than mere earthly existence or survival of the body.

Life has descended from its own true Home into the darkness, ignorance and unconscious inertia of earth nature. She has laboured long to find the key of her redemption and of matter along with it. All her labour is to discover the Power that is hidden in her own deepest core.

The force of life refuses to give up even in the face of stiff resistance by matter. This is the great epic of Life moving and filling each form with the will to grow and create and evolve towards a yet unseen end.

Life is everywhere, expressed or unexpressed. It creates different means for its manifestation. We see here the immortal nature of Life and its power to create everywhere. It builds the forms by its breath imparting force to things inert. It arouses forces from their sleep and urges them to endure and to create.

Each world is governed by its own inherent and intrinsic law. Its beings and creatures as well as those who act under its influence come under this law and experience things accordingly.

The powers of Life having emerged out of the breast of the Eternal’s Luminous Force labour here to bring something of that Glory from where she has come, out of which she is born. It is a long and painstaking labour of love.

Life is in perpetual motion. There is within it the Witness Spirit whose power drives and pushes it towards greater and greater heights. The kingdom of little life is but a step that evolves further into the kingdom of Greater Life.

Sri Aurobindo once again brings us back to the central truth that this world is a progressive manifestation of the Spirit. It is the Divine who is expressing Himself through the symbol forms of the universe.

Climbing further from this dream land Aswapati enters a realm where day and night meet. The sun has not yet arisen but there is some kind of hope and guidance from the high heavens beyond. Out of the fantasy land we move into a realm that seeks to realise what it dreams of.

This dream world is where some half-baked aspirants get trapped, especially those who are secretly ambition and desire. Unable to put the required effort for purification or face the battle within and without, they create a fantasy land of ‘half-truths, half lies’ and live like one deluded who knows not his own deceit.