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.
At the Feet of The Mother
Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
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.
This world of little life seems to be a failure when seen from one angle. But that is an error of sight. Each is a step in an inevitable chain that climbs towards the Eternal. This is a step that the force and power of Life takes in its upward ascension.
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.
This world is like a stair between the harsh physical realities of today and the idealism that inspires us towards a better and higher future. But it is not build on real power nor has the true knowledge, and is caught in its own wonderland of dreams and fantasies.
As we can see this is a world where fantasy and reality, dreams and imaginations mix with truth. This too is a passage through which the evolutionary Energy must pass.
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.